Project 1. SEP 2018 - 30. JUN 2025
Legally Nudging the Caseworker: The Role of Legislation on Sanctioning Behavior
Participants:
Governments formulate policy and legislation in order to guide the caseworkers’ behavior at work. Nonetheless, we know relatively little about the extent to which the caseworkers’ behavior is guided by centrally-issued regulation. Drawing on insights from the fields of public administration and sociology of law, we examine the role of legislation in caseworker sanctioning behavior in the area of Danish unemployment casework. In Denmark, municipal job centers and their caseworkers must implement state legislation within the field of public unemployment benefits. This obligation includes sanctioning clients who not follow or comply with the policies and procedures required for receiving unemployment benefits.
For investigating the extent to which the caseworkers’ assessment of clients can be influence by legislation, we distributed a survey to a sample of job center caseworkers (n = 500) in 2016. All respondents were exposed to an experimental vignette describing a cash benefits recipient who failed to participate in a municipal activation scheme, and thus potentially infringing upon public labor market legislation. Sanctioning behavior was the dependent variable. Following the case vignette, all respondents were asked to state what they would decide on 11-point scale, anchored at 0 for “definitely not sanction” and 10 for “definitely sanction.” We randomly assigned the respondents to one of three experimental groups—control, treatment I, and treatment II—each receiving a slightly different version of the case vignette. Relative to the control group, the case vignettes of treatment groups 1 and 2 contained an additional paragraph of text. Treatment group 1 received extra text reminding them of a recent labor market reform gradually downgrading state subsidies to the municipal budget depending on the length of time that unemployment benefit recipients remain on public benefits. Treatment group 2 received extra text reminding them of legislative provisions allowing them to make exceptions from the imposition of sanctions for clients failing to live up to sanctioning rules if health issues may have impeded the client from doing so. Analyses show that the budget reform treatment (treatment 1) had no impact on the sanctioning inclination of the caseworkers. However, the health rules treatment (treatment 2) significantly weakened the caseworkers’ propensity to sanction the client (compared to the control group). Moreover, we found that women to a higher extent than men were influenced by the health rules treatment.
We discuss the extent to which our findings represent a case in favor of ‘legal nudging’, i.e. reminding caseworkers of important pieces of legislation in order to secure that they take crucial state rules into consideration when assessing a client and their merits.
For investigating the extent to which the caseworkers’ assessment of clients can be influence by legislation, we distributed a survey to a sample of job center caseworkers (n = 500) in 2016. All respondents were exposed to an experimental vignette describing a cash benefits recipient who failed to participate in a municipal activation scheme, and thus potentially infringing upon public labor market legislation. Sanctioning behavior was the dependent variable. Following the case vignette, all respondents were asked to state what they would decide on 11-point scale, anchored at 0 for “definitely not sanction” and 10 for “definitely sanction.” We randomly assigned the respondents to one of three experimental groups—control, treatment I, and treatment II—each receiving a slightly different version of the case vignette. Relative to the control group, the case vignettes of treatment groups 1 and 2 contained an additional paragraph of text. Treatment group 1 received extra text reminding them of a recent labor market reform gradually downgrading state subsidies to the municipal budget depending on the length of time that unemployment benefit recipients remain on public benefits. Treatment group 2 received extra text reminding them of legislative provisions allowing them to make exceptions from the imposition of sanctions for clients failing to live up to sanctioning rules if health issues may have impeded the client from doing so. Analyses show that the budget reform treatment (treatment 1) had no impact on the sanctioning inclination of the caseworkers. However, the health rules treatment (treatment 2) significantly weakened the caseworkers’ propensity to sanction the client (compared to the control group). Moreover, we found that women to a higher extent than men were influenced by the health rules treatment.
We discuss the extent to which our findings represent a case in favor of ‘legal nudging’, i.e. reminding caseworkers of important pieces of legislation in order to secure that they take crucial state rules into consideration when assessing a client and their merits.
Participants
Project manager
