This chapter addresses two questions: how and why do unemployment benefits in Italy treat older workers more generously than younger workers, while in the Netherlands the opposite is true? The answer to the how question is straightforward. The youth orientation of the Dutch system of unemployment protection is due largely to two policy features: generous regular unemployment insurance benefits and universal coverage that protects first-time job seekers. Italy's highly elderly-oriented system of unemployment protection, on the other hand, is characterized by meager regular unemployment insurance benefits and no benefits for youth unemployed.

The answer to the why question is more complicated and more interesting. Italy and the Netherlands share features that we might expect would lead them to develop similar kinds of unemployment policies. Both display features of what have variously been labeled Conservative-Corporatist or Christian Democratic systems, combined with a distinct leftist presence in policy making. The result is a male-breadwinner–centered labor market, few active labor market policies, and low female labor force participation. The two countries also share a history of high unemployment, numerically rather weak labor unions, and high levels of self-employment. Yet Esping-Andersen's (1990) characterization of the Netherlands as an almost Social Democratic welfare state, a characterization driven largely by the generosity of Dutch unemployment benefits, highlights an important difference. Italy and the Netherlands differ dramatically in the extent to which their welfare states protect elderly versus non-elderly citizens from a variety of risks, and nowhere is this difference as pronounced as in their unemployment policy regimes.