Submitted Abstract
Social assistance dynamics has recently received growing attention in both academic and policy-making circles given the growth in social inequalities, the transformations of the labour market, and the pressure on public budgets. Social assistance refers to a non-contributory and means tested form of income support for people who cannot make a living on their own with other income resources. In addition to providing a solution to temporary economic hardship, social assistance schemes also aim at promoting labour market participation through activation measures in order to avoid individuals’ to be trapped in social assistance. In this context, understanding the dynamics of social assistance, in particular the determinants of beneficiaries’ exits and the sustainability of their exit from social assistance toward the labour market, has become increasingly important. The overall research framework is built in order to answer the question “What influences working-age people sustainable exit from social assistance?” in an innovative way. The WISE Phd project aims at contributing to the literature on social assistance dynamics by using mixed methods to gain a deeper understanding of beneficiaries’ transitions out of social assistance. In particular, the project aims at investigating the institutional and individual factors that favour working-age beneficiaries’ exit towards a sustainable form of exit by (1) looking at how activation affects the time to exit from social assistance and beneficiaries’ employment prospects and (2) more generally, how activation fosters beneficiaries’ social inclusion and (3) how social workers’ practices related with the needs of their clients and the requirements of the law and the public administration in managing the activation schemes. The generosity of social assistance in Luxembourg, as well as the complete design of the Minimum Guaranteed Income scheme with a dedicated activation scheme, makes it a relevant case study to analyse the question of transition out versus dependence to social assistance.