Anticipated administrative burdens: How proximity to upcoming compulsory meetings affect welfare recipients' experiences of administrative burden

Abstract

Administrative burden research claims that target group members are likely to experience learning, compliance, and psychological costs when interacting with government programs. We argue that the mere anticipation of such interactions may translate into experiences of administrative burden. Utilizing a large-scale dataset with responses from 2276 Danish social benefit recipients, we estimate how proximity to upcoming compulsory meetings with street-level bureaucrats—a common condition in means-tested benefit programs—affect the recipients' experiences of burdens. We find that the shorter the time to future meetings, the more benefit recipients experience stress and stigma, but the less they experience learning costs. The findings suggest that welfare recipient experiences of burden are likely to fluctuate over time and that psychological costs increase as recipients have to make mental and practical preparations for complying with government demands.