Study on Non take-up of social benefits

Non-take-up of social benefits is a major impediment to the effectiveness of social protection systems. When people fail to receive the benefits to which they are entitled (i.e. eligible), this means that they receive a lower level of support than what they could have obtained, and this weakens as well the effectiveness of public policies to tackle poverty and income inequality. To be able to address the issue of non-take-up, a clear view on its extent, causes and possible remedies is needed.

However, despite the challenge of non-take-up and despite this issue having gained heightened attention in recent years from amongst others policy makers and academia, data about its extent is still insufficient. Indeed, quantitative data about the extent of non-take-up (i.e. the non-take-up rate) is seldom available for EU Member States. Most often, only sporadic data (estimates) is available, and not for all types of social benefit.

This is because the non-take-up rate for a given social benefit in a given Member State is hard to quantify, requiring, amongst others, to precisely determine the size of the total population eligible for this benefit. Non-take-up of social benefits is a major impediment to the effectiveness of social protection systems. When people fail to receive the benefits to which they are entitled (i.e. eligible), this means that they receive a lower level of support than what they could have obtained, and this weakens as well the effectiveness of public policies to tackle poverty and income inequality.

To be able to address the issue of non-take-up, a clear view on its extent, causes and possible remedies is needed. However, despite the challenge of non-take-up and despite this issue having gained heightened attention in recent years from amongst others policy makers and academia, data about its extent is still insufficient. Indeed, quantitative data about the extent of non-take-up (i.e. the non-take-up rate) is seldom available for EU Member States.

Most often, only sporadic data (estimates) is available, and not for all types of social benefit. This is because the non-take-up rate for a given social benefit in a given Member State is hard to quantify, requiring, amongst others, to precisely determine the size of the total population eligible for this benefit.