Household Claiming Behaviour

Social security benefits provide an essential resource for most families on low incomes. This paper examines the life cycle of claiming activities, from the initial decision to claim through to routine claiming. New empirical evidence is drawn from a study of relatively low income households in South East England carried out by the Alvey DHSS Demonstrator Project. A number of analytical stages which comprise the “claiming process” are identified for the purpose of describing the complex sequence of events associated with claiming behaviour. The paper shows how adequate explanations of the life cycle of claiming activities need to be located within a broader analysis of decision-making within relatively low income households.