What Influences Social assistance Exits ?

Social assistance dynamics have 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 financial support for people who cannot make a living on their own with other financial resources. In addition to providing a solution to economic hardship by providing a minimum income guarantee, in the last couple of decades, social assistance schemes have embedded activation policies to promote self-sufficiency and social inclusion though paid work.

These latest 'work-first' policy developments subordinate financial support to work integration and open up controversies about whether work can provide social assistance recipients with the sufficient means their households need and whether, in that context, the provision of activation reduces the solution of social problems to a mere issue of unemployment.

In this framework, the W.I.S.E. PhD project aims at contributing to debate on the role of activation as an instrument for the promotion of the social inclusion of social assistance recipients. The project focuses on the recipients receiving support from the minimum income scheme (Revenu Minimum Garanti) in Luxembourg and investigates: (1) the influence of activation policies in fostering recipients' exit from social assistance, their employment prospects and, more broadly, how and whether activation supports their social inclusion and (2) the practices of social workers in implementing activation and the role they play for the mediation of recipients' social and employment needs and the 'work-first' requirements established by the policy regulation. The project adopts a multi-methods approach and relies on the analysis of administrative data as well as qualitative interviews conducted with policy beneficiaries, implementers and managers.