Dynamics of social assistance: the Norwegian experience in comparative perspective

In the article we ask how long Norwegian recipients of social assistance stay on aid over an eight‐year period? We focus on the populations selected, the design of the study and how spells are recorded and measured. The data set includes nearly the entire 1995 cohort of social assistance claimants (n = 155,000), and contains individual information over eight years (1992–1999), which is the maximum length of a single continuous spell. The study combines a retrospective and a prospective multiple cohort design. The data analysis shows that there is no simple answer to our question; the answer depends on the sample selected, the design, number of spells counted and the chosen measure of central tendency. We find that median duration times vary from two months to 40 months. The conclusion is that a point‐in‐time sample has clearly the longest duration. It makes a big difference whether one measures one or more spells. Because cycling is a common phenomenon, the sum of all spell durations is much higher than that of the first continuous spell. A retrospective design severely underestimates spell durations since many spells are right‐hand censored. As there is no single, adequate answer to our initial question, it is recommended that analysts of social assistance dynamics carefully specify their sample, design and spells counted.