FAMILY ALLOWANCES. - In Italy this name has been given to the indemnities paid to employees of private firms, in addition to the remuneration deriving from the contractual regulation of employment relationships, in relation to the burdens borne by workers by reason of the composition of the family. Since direct payment by individual firms is not possible, because in that case workers with fewer family burdens would be preferred as less costly, the indemnities are paid through a mutualistic mechanism for equalizing the burdens, in the sense that firms contribute, by means of contributions calculated with reference to their entire dependent staff, to the formation of the necessary funds from which the indemnities owed to individual employees are drawn. The need for the compensation system does not arise when the matter concerns firms or bodies that do not operate on the plane of economic competition: consequently the State administration and public bodies in general provide for direct payment to their own employees of special family indemnities, having the same nature and purpose as family allowances.
Originally family allowances were instituted as a particular supplement, also of an assistance nature, to make up for the inadequacy of wages for workers with family burdens, at a time of exceptional increase in the cost of living, as in France in 1922, or, as in Italy in 1934, on the occasion of the reduction of wages resulting from the corresponding reduction of weekly working hours. Soon, however, from that originally contingent nature, the institution of family allowances was extended and perfected, in unconditional form, substantially arriving at a system that realizes, albeit in part and imperfectly, the principle of the family wage.
Insofar as they do not represent consideration for work performed, family allowances do not constitute an element of remuneration, for the various legal purposes. The question whether they may be considered as forming part of social insurance is debated: recently the affirmative view has prevailed, taking into account the evolving concept of social insurance which, from its original scheme grafted onto social insurance, tends to evolve into a system of protection and social security, based on the principle of the redistribution of incomes carried out according to a concept of solidarity.
By virtue of being paid with reference to a condition of need, objectively assessed in relation to family burdens, the amount of family allowances is independent of the amount of the individual remuneration and is uniform for the entire category of workers entitled to them. At present in Italy this amount differs according to whether the workers belong to the great groups of industry, commerce, credit, insurance and agriculture.
The beneficiaries are the family members living as dependents of the worker. In the face of the thesis maintained by some, and realized among other things in French and English legislation, according to which family allowances must be paid, save for particular exceptions, only when the family has a numerical composition greater than a given average (generally more than one child), and in the face of the thesis, partly connected with the preceding one, of taking into account the number of children in order to give larger families preferential treatment, realized in Italian legislation until 1934, the principle has now become established in Italy that family allowances are owed in respect of all dependent children, without any progressive character in relation to their number; moreover, besides for children, they are also owed for the wife, as well as for dependent parents living with the worker, when they have passed certain age limits or are disabled.
The payment of the allowances is carried out as a rule by the firm itself, which recovers from the Institute that administers the allowances the amount paid out: in agriculture the payment is made directly by the Institute to the workers entitled to them, identified by means of special lists.
The insurance for marriage and birth rates, implemented in Italy in 1939, with the purpose of paying special allowances on the occasion of the marriage and the birth of children of workers, is to be regarded as connected with the purposes inspiring family allowances.