Newly Published Paper: Everyday Administrative Burdens and Inequality

Below and linked here is our recent co-authored paper with Lucie Martin and Orla Doyle forthcoming in Public Administration Review. 

Everyday Administrative Burdens and Inequality

Lucie Martin, Liam Delaney, Orla Doyle

First published: 30 July 2023

 

https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13709

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1111/puar.13709.

Abstract

Administrative burdens create costly experiences for citizens, especially disadvantaged groups. Research to date focuses on how burdens affect outcomes in specific policy contexts, thus little is known about cumulative experiences of burdens in everyday life and their distribution in society. This is the first study to document everyday administrative experiences, accounting for time and well-being costs across ten domains: tax, retirement, government benefits, bills, goods and services, savings, debt, health, childcare, and adult care. Survey results from 2,243 UK adults show that administrative tasks are a significant part of everyday life, with time and well-being costs that vary by domain. Benefits-related tasks are particularly costly. There is evidence of distributive effects. Those in poor health and financial insecurity are more likely to engage in salient tasks, such as benefits, but less likely to engage with longer-term tasks including savings and retirement. They experience higher well-being costs, especially during salient tasks.