the pension system starting from 2008, but its effects are supposed to get deeply smoothed by the new centre-left government in charge since 2006. Family policies, elderly and disabled care, social assistance Maternity leave consists of two months before and three months after birth. Mothers are granted 80 percent of their previous wages and an additional six months of optional leave. They have the right to retain their job for one year. Family benefits are related to family size and income, with increased payments for disabled family members. Social assistance is entitlement-based and means tested, and applies to needy families. Social services to the elderly, the disabled, and needy families are dealt with by local authorities, sometimes with the assistance of volunteer associations and no-profit social service cooperatives. Disabled people without work receive around €270 each month. Historical overview The Italian welfare state's foundations were laid along the lines of the corporatist-conservative model, or of its Mediterranean variant., Later in the 1960s and 1970s, increases in public spending and a major focus on universality brought it on the same path as social-democratic systems. The rate of growth in social spending in Italy varied in the last few decades of the twentieth century. For the years 1970–1980, the average rate of growth was 4.1 percent. This increased to 4.4 percent for the years 1980–1990 and then decreased significantly to an average of 1.9 percent for the period 1990–2000. Reduced growth rates in the latter period occurred amidst a wave of welfare state reforms in the "southern European" states. In Italy, reforms targeted inequities in pension programs that favoured specific segments of the population. This was accomplished through multiple rounds of pension reform in the 1990s. Reforms elsewhere sought to extend social insurance to a broader proportion of the Italian population and included the extension of some social services and means-tested programmes for poor households. Despite reform efforts, Italy faces challenges from high unemployment, especially among youth and women. Italians aged 15–24 were unemployed at a rate of 34.7 percent in 2017. Women were unemployed at an overall rate of 12.4 percent, with women aged 20–24 and 25–34 being unemployed at rates of 34.6 and 19 percent respectively. Reforms in the late 1990s led to non-profits and charities providing more welfare services on behalf of the government. This blurred the lines between the formal welfare systems administered by the state and informal