Role of family in the maintenance of social welfare

The family is an institution that has been studied from different perspectives by many disciplines. It can be said that there is a rich literature in this field. But the family is also an economic unit. In fact, it is seen that it plays an important role in providing social welfare due to this feature. It is observed that the degree of this role in the historical plan has changed significantly in some processes. Especially considering that social welfare has different components; It turns out that this duty cannot be fulfilled by the family, the state, non-governmental organizations or the market alone. As a matter of fact, this task is undertaken at different levels by different social welfare actors today as it was in the past. This study tries to determine the contribution/role of the family to social welfare. Especially in connection with the concept of Welfare State, it is seen that the actors involved in the presentation of social welfare today play a role in a Welfare Mix to a certain extent. Again, in the Welfare State classification, it is claimed by some authors that the countries in the Southern European Welfare States are similar in terms of the social support roles of families. So much so that these features affect their social well-being significantly. In order to determine both the direction of change in social welfare and the consequent changing role of the family, the link between the two needs to be revealed. Thus, the social welfare provided by the state, the market, non-governmental organizations and the family at certain rates today will be able to reach a healthy ground in terms of social development. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the efforts on this subject. Keywords: Family, North European Welfare Model, Welfare State, Welfare Mix, Social Welfare.