«The sun and the clouds»: meaning, potential and limits of the primary solidarity in Portugal in the context of Southern European welfare systems

One of the key elements of the widely recognized distinctive character of the Southern European welfare systems is related to its specific institutional welfare arrangement, namely the role of voluntary sector and family as welfare providers. In this point of view, Southern European families play a meaningful welfare role and the informal support networks of families compensate an important part of the public welfare gaps. Although the recognition of the relevance of the social capital based on the primary solidarity as “watermark” of the South Europe countries, other perspectives underlying the need to elucidate the characteristics and limitations of informal support networks. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the meaning, potential and limits of the primary solidarity in Portugal in the context of Southern European welfare system. Theoretical and empirical bases of this paper are the debates on welfare regimes, with particular attention to the Southern European welfare state discussion, the empirical studies on family dynamics and networks in Portugal and the European and international organisations statistical information.