ABSTRACT
The financial crisis, which emerged in the USA in 2008 and continued to spread all over the world, was followed by the European debt crisis near the end of 2009. The factors leading to the debt crisis can be divided into two main categories: Firstly, the countries fell into the crises as a result of the gradually growing burden of debt (Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal) was also the countries which have “Southern European Welfare Regime”. Public and social expenditures in these countries are lower than those countries with a higher national income per capita. However, these countries have considerably exceeded their potential of public and social expenditure. On the other hand; these countries, with their lower levels of productivity, have become even less efficient by the effect of Euro and, because they had easy access to loan, were able to significantly increase their burden of debt. As a result, Spain and Portugal faced a liquidity crisis, while Greece and Italy faced a default crisis. This study handles the welfare regimes in these countries within the framework of the current debt crises they experience, given that a profligate welfare regime has a direct or indirect role in a crisis. For this purpose, the social expenditure increase in Southern European Welfare Regime countries is analyzed and correlated with their current debt crisis.