Social economy in Italy

The Social Cooperative is a particular form of Cooperative introduced and regulated by 381/1991  and by decree 112/2017 as a SOCIAL ENTERPRISE. 

It qualifies as a particular form of cooperative society aimed at pursuing the general interest of the  community in human promotion and the social integration of citizens. 

Social Cooperatives are divided into two types: 

1. TYPE A aimed at providing social, health and educational services, education and vocational  training, extracurricular training, job placement (type A); 

2. Type B carrying out various activities - agricultural, industrial, commercial or services - aimed at  the job placement of disadvantaged people (type B). 

The development of social cooperation reaches its peak in Italy between the 1980s and 1990s in  relation to a series of phenomena including:

❖ crisis of the welfare state 

❖ need to create a new welfare, through the outsourcing of the socio-economic system.
❖ increase in the demand for services following the change in social and health needs, linked  to demographic factors (eg increase in the average life span). 

The social private sector redefines the distance between the recipients of services and the  organization of interventions, stimulating greater participation from below, in the form of voluntary  work. 

Social cooperation has thus allowed the entry of new subjects into the Third Sector: Personal  services are placed at the center of an innovation, where the protagonists are social needs  (psychiatric patients, drug addicts, alcoholics, the elderly, etc.) families, independent groups and  associations.