Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on the role of family transfers during two different periods of social and economic crisis in Greece. It will try to examine the interaction between family strategies and wider process of social reproduction aiming to show the complexity of economic exchanges within market societies.

Paper long abstract:

While family exchanges and transfers play a capital role within pre-capitalist societies, their role in "modern" market societies is often underestimated. As market processes are supposed to constitute the organizational principle of economic activities, outside market exchanges are regarded as marginal or vestigial. However, the persistence of different types of exchanges, especially in periods of economic crisis, imposes the reexamination of the dynamic character of family transfers within the construction and the transformation of market societies. In this framework I will examine the role of family exchanges in post-war and contemporary Greece.

Taking two different periods of economic and social crisis in Greece, this paper aims to discuss the role of family exchanges and transfers not only as a factor of family reproduction but as a component of social transformation and wider social reproduction processes. Thus, I will examine, firstly, the period during the '50s and the '60s where rapid urbanization and a shift from rural to industrial and services economy took place and, secondly, the current period of economic crisis. On the one hand, extended family transfers have been the base for aggressive housing strategies marking a period of immigration and urbanization. On the other hand, intergenerational exchanges and transfers contribute to the reproduction of households that face serious economic problems due to unemployment and low revenues within the current economic crisis. In both cases, exchanges and transfers within family networks are part of households' important reproductive strategies aiming to cope with instable conditions and at the same time imply a complex interaction between market and non-market processes.