Análisis de convergencia de los sistemas europeos de protección social

In the present article the author tries to assess the member states of the European Union with respect to the level of social protection, comparing the achieved degree of convergence with the role played by the Third Sector in each of them. To do this she analyzes the convergence (alpha and beta) of total costs of various scenarios of social protection for the period of 2006-2007. Materials from the ESSPROS (Eurostat) database are the basis for considerations concerning the causes of the development of the Third Sector and the explanation of the important role it plays in European systems of social protection, in accordance with the assumptions of the Social Agenda of the European Union of 2008.