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The article investigates whether and to what extent outsiderness is gendered in Western Europe, both in terms of its spread and degree. It thus explores which male and female post-Fordist social classes are more exposed to the risk of this phenomenon. It also scrutinizes whether such a gendered characterization has varied over time and across clusters of Western European countries.

Relying on a comparative analysis of the data provided by the European Social Survey (ESS) dataset and comparing two points in time – the early/mid-2000s and the late 2010s – the work provides both a dichotomous and continuous variable of outsiderness, which measure its spread and degree in the female and male workforces of a pooled set of growth models.

The empirical analysis shows that outsiderness is profoundly gendered in Western Europe and thus a feminized social phenomenon. However, the comparative investigation highlights that outsiderness has been genderized in diverse ways across the four growth models. Different patterns of gendered outsiderness can be identified.

The article provides a comparative and diachronic analysis of outsiderness from a gender lens, putting into a mutual dialogue different literature on labour market, and shows that outsiderness represents a key analytical dimension for assessing gender inequalities.

The article explores to what extent party politics has influenced the different trajectories in Spain and Italy in terms of gendered active social policies (ASPs) (i.e. ALMPs and WLBPs). Second, it investigates how social and political modernization in the two countries has facilitated or hindered party competition on gendered ASPs.

To investigate to what extent parties support gendered ASPs, the article relies on an original content analysis of party manifestos issued during the 2010s national elections. A total of 1387 quasi-sentences have been coded. The results were then quantified to graphically show how positions differentiate across parties and countries.

The content analysis of party manifestos displays that party politics matters: gendered ASPs are backed in a very different way by the Spanish and Italian parties. While in Spain all political parties have strongly championed ALMPs and WLBPs, this is not the case for the Italian parties. The research has also stressed that the specific path of social and political modernization is an important intervening variable that alters positively or negatively parties' support for gendered ASPs.

The article contributes to widen theoretically and empirically the literature on ASPs in the Southern European countries. Theoretically, it questions the supposed homogeneity of the Southern social model and investigated the alleged bifurcation between Italy and Spain, focusing on those policies – ASPs – that constitute the foundations of the Southern model: familialism and dualization. Furthermore, this bifurcation was analyzed adopting a gender perspective, and exploring adherence to or departure from the Southern model. Third, the article focuses on the politics of ASPs demonstrating that inspecting the political arena can contribute to explain policy change.

The article examines how street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) manage the digital bureaucratic relationship in dealing with customer needs and the technological innovations introduced into organisations (digital tools). The topic of technological transformations from a street-level perspective has garnered limited interest so far, especially in Italy. The research question underlying the article is as follows: how does the discretion of SLBs change with the introduction of digital tools within the public administration? We expect that the characteristics of clients on the one hand, and the degree of institutionalisation of the digital tool in question on the other, will change the way in which SLBs exercise their discretion.

The data were collected from two separate research projects in which the authors were involved: (1) the first was a doctoral research project concerning labour inspectors tasked with investigating labour irregularities reported by workers; (2) the second was a research project regarding the relationship between the elderly and public service caseworkers. Information gathered through a series of semi-structured interviews was analysed, with a focus on the digitalisation process. The interviewees included 15 labour inspectors, and 12 long-term care caseworkers. With regard to the interviews conducted with labour inspectors, we examined the online request for action submitted by workers reporting irregularities in their employment relationships. As regards the interviews with caseworkers involved in services for the elderly, the discussion revolved around the option introduced during the pandemic period in 2020, to request access to the services in question through submission of an online form rather than requesting such services in person.

What emerges is that while the introduction of digitalised policies allows SLBs to obtain more information with which to assess the situation of individuals, the discretionary power exercised by front-line workers only results in the partial use of the digital tool, whilst favouring the traditional relationship between bureaucrats and their clients.

We introduce the concepts of “digital discretion” and “analogic discretion” in an attempt to understand how SLBs use their decision-making powers, which may prove to be useful analytical tools for studying the ways in which the discretion of SLBs is realised through new digital practices.