Who needs cash? The deservingness perceptions of Brazilian civil servants in cash‐based social policy implementation

Abstract

Drawing on existing European research findings, we assess factors driving Brazilian social security street-level officials' deservingness perceptions through survey and administrative data. Ordered regression analyses gauge the effects of socioeconomic status, social work academic background and face-to-face contact with the public on these officials' perceptions towards social assistance beneficiaries under seven deservingness criteria. A middle-class socioeconomic status increased the odds that beneficiaries are seen as undeserving under the criteria of social investment, control and reciprocity, while a high socioeconomic status is linked to benevolent perceptions of their need. A social work academic background is strongly linked to higher overall deservingness perceptions, whereas frequent face-to-face contact with the public can reduce them under the control deservingness criterion. The research takes a new step in the direction of deservingness survey studies, suggesting the formulation of new analytical frameworks and increasing policymakers' awareness of the importance of variables driving bureaucracy decisions.

Shared professional logics amongst managers and bureaucrats in Brazilian social security: a street-level mixed-methods study

“…Despite their eminently rule-application duties, benefit systems’ complexity opens decision-making leeway or discretion (authors, under review). Yet, as in other Global South welfare bureaucracies (Lotta et al ., 2021), INSS SLBs do not belong to a formal professional group and so they share diverse formation backgrounds, making discretion more vulnerable to idiosyncratic distributive justice convictions (de Andrade and Pekkola, 2022). The ways they use this discretion can have significant aggregated effects on the Brazilian economy, given the magnitude of INSS welfare provision – US$130 bn/year to more than 36 m people (Ministério da Economia, 2020).…”

“…INSS officials’ activities are highly prescribed by managerialism. They work in desk office environments or at counters, under standardised protocols and IT system scripts, rarely engaging in fieldwork (de Andrade and Pekkola, 2022). Managerial instruments constrain their power to treat cases in a tailored, one-by-one fashion, as wider discretion is deemed to encourage late, unclear, inefficient, unstandardised and unfair decisions (Pinheiro et al ., 2018).…”

“…The following variables are available for the officials: (1) encounters , total times the official was face-to-face with clients from April 2017 to March 2020; (2) encounter time , total hours spent in these encounters; (3) encounter time ratio , the average time spent in these encounters; (4) gender totals; (5) macroregion , one of the five regional subdivisions in which the official works; (6) unit size , the number of officials working in the unit; (7) years in office , total years worked for INSS and (8) years in management , total years holding the current management position.Utilised survey data were collected in 2021, and answers (sample 1, n = 678) are relatable to the registry data. The following variables were extracted from them: (1) deservingness perceptions scores, that is, the official’s agreement level in Likert scales to statements concerning their deservingness perceptions under seven criteria; (2) formation type, the official’s higher education formation area; (3) gender ; (4) if they are a manager and (5) their self-assessed socioeconomic status on a scale from 1 to 10 (de Andrade and Pekkola, 2022). We consider managers (SLMs) officials declaring management or supervision amongst their five most-performed activities since 2018 ( total = 174).…”

“…Utilised survey data were collected in 2021, and answers (sample 1, n = 678) are relatable to the registry data. The following variables were extracted from them: (1) deservingness perceptions scores, that is, the official’s agreement level in Likert scales to statements concerning their deservingness perceptions under seven criteria; (2) formation type, the official’s higher education formation area; (3) gender ; (4) if they are a manager and (5) their self-assessed socioeconomic status on a scale from 1 to 10 (de Andrade and Pekkola, 2022). We consider managers (SLMs) officials declaring management or supervision amongst their five most-performed activities since 2018 ( total = 174).…”