ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the main characteristics and welfare rationale of the Mediterranean typology. Familism, female employment and care are singled out as three representative areas which provide data on the dynamics of continuity and change in the Southern European countries under examination. Particular attention is paid to the increasing female participation in the labour market and the gradual disappearance of the so-called Mediterranean ‘superwomen’. The process of female labour activation is already having a great impact in all activities concerned with the type of care traditionally carried out within Mediterranean households. Final remarks stress the need to pay attention in future research to ongoing societal changes which are bound to have knock-on consequences for Southern European welfare as we have known it until now.