The Who and the Why? Selection Bias in an Unconditional Basic Income Inspired Social Assistance Experiment

Betkó, János; Spierings, Niels; Gesthuizen, Maurice; Scheepers, Peer

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30044-9_6

The Who and the Why? Selection Bias in an Unconditional Basic Income Inspired Social Assistance Experiment

János Betkó²,
Niels Spierings²,
Maurice Gesthuizen² &
Peer Scheepers²

Chapter
First Online: 28 November 2019

648 Accesses
1 Citations
2 Altmetric

Part of the Contributions to Economics book series (CE)

Abstract

It is well documented that it is important to take selection effects into account when analysing social experiments. A Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) design usually prevents selection bias, but not when participation is voluntary. Despite the abundance of literature on the existence of selection bias, few studies provide in-depth insights on how these selection effects take place in practice, and what causes different groups to be over—or under-represented. Nijmegen is one of a number of Dutch municipalities that conduct an experiment with the social assistance system, loosely inspired by the Universal Basic Income (UBI). Participants receive their allowance with less conditions, and get the opportunity to earn additional income. In this chapter, selection effects are tested, using registry data of participants and all non-participants in the population. In addition, qualitative data are used to interpret the selection effects we find. Several characteristics turned out to increase or decrease participation: education, country of origin, being single, having an exemption of the obligation to work, and part-time work providing additional income. Further, we propose that stress is an important deterrent for people to participate in an experiment like this, even when the experiment is aimed at (among others) stress reduction, like the one in Nijmegen.

Keywords

Social assistance
UBI-related experiment
Selection bias
Mixed methods
Randomised controlled trial

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 129.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 169.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 169.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
An overview of these arguments can be found for example in Bregman (2014) , the same line of argumentation can be found in the proposals by local politicians, e.g. Westerveld (2015) for Nijmegen.
2.
Ontario’s basic income pilot SeeAlsoSeeAlsoExperiment(s) will end on March 31, 2019 (Jeffords, 2018; https://globalnews.ca/news/4422214/ontario-basic-income-pilot-end/). The Finnish basic income experiment has ended on December 31, 2018 (see De Wispelaere, Halmetoja, & Pulkka, 2018 ).
3.
For example, the Ontario experiment was based on voluntary participation as well.
4.
Mainly the data in the registry of the WerkBedrijf (the local reintegration organisation) and the data of the department Zorg & Inkomen (Care & Income) of the municipality.
5.
All Dutch laws can be found at the website wetten.overheid.nl
6.
These amounts are for 2019.
7.
The central poverty line of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, SCP) (for a single person € 1063 in 2014) is based on having an income which is ‘not much but sufficient’ and includes what is considered necessary to eat, live, buy clothes and take part in social activities.
8.
This was later also internationally released as ‘Utopia for realists’.
9.
For those interested, Betkó (2018) gives an overview of this, and the broader context – it is only available in Dutch though.
10.
Under normal rules, a person on social allowance is allowed to keep 25% of money earned through work, up to a maximum of € 200 per month, for a maximum of 6 months. In the experiment, participants are allowed to keep 50%, up to a maximum of € 200 per month, for the entire duration of the experiment which is 22 months.
11.
The city council voted for the proposal to experiment with a large majority.
12.
In Nijmegen, as well as in the other municipalities that held similar experiments.
13.
The Werkbedrijf is engaged in job placement and reintegration. It is an administrative-regional association of municipalities, social partners (employers and trade unions) and the UWV (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen; Employee Insurance Agency).
14.
This could also be seen as a specific form of randomisation bias, where participants in a specific group (often the control group) are participating less in the data gathering (Smith, 2000). In this case, the randomisation process leads to selective drop out; to perceive this process is more important than the exact labelling, be it drop-out or randomisation bias.
15.
See Sect. 6.4.1 for reasons behind this choice in design.
16.
This only goes for the national tax allowances. On the local level, the municipality of Nijmegen considers a person on social assistance as eligible for local arrangements.
17.
And (thus) neither a ‘couple’.
18.
Single person 70%; two persons each 50%, total 100%; 3 persons 43.33% each, total 130%; 4 persons 40% each, total 160%; 5 persons 38% each, total 190%, etc.
19.
Labyrinth Onderzoek & Advies, Utrecht.
20.
The experiment ends on October 1, 2019.
21.
This might seem quite a wide range, but it is good to keep in mind that the number of people on social assistance is never stable; people enter and exit the scheme every day. For example, both the entire population of people on social assistance and the target population for this experiment differed at the time of the first and the second wave (December 2017 and March 2018).
22.
We are not able to do this fully. For example, the assessment on whether or not the re-integration trajectory an applicant was already receiving was a barrier for participation, was done on a case by case basis by a professional. It was not done based on a list of criteria that could be used to reduce our population.
23.
In the evaluation of the experiment, we will be able to use data of Statistics Netherlands (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS) instead of the municipality, which is much more accurate.
24.
Following the definition of Statistics Netherlands.
25.
This is based on the experience the municipality has with social assistance duration. Under 1 year, people have reasonable chance to find a job. Between 1 and 3 years, it gets more difficult, and once somebody is on social assistance for longer than 3 years, the chance of leaving it due to finding a job is very small.
26.
The transcripts of the interview and the documents provided by the research bureau can be consulted at request. For this, contact the authors.
27.
According to the Natural Persons Debt Restructuring Act (Wet schuldsanering natuurlijke personen, Wsnp) Dutch municipalities are obliged to help their residents with problematic debts. The main objective of the Wsnp is to offer (financial) perspective to individuals in a desperate financial situation as a result of debts.
28.
Survey data show that advocates of UBI may vote for the introduction of UBI because they favour the concept and want to stimulate the discussion, but are well aware that there are downsides too (see Delsen & Schilpzand, Chap. 3).
29.
One recruiter mentioned people had bad experiences with additional income. Having income in addition to an allowance is something that notoriously often goes wrong. This can lead to people losing their allowance , or having to repay tax allowances over a year after receiving them. For people on the subsistence minimum, this has grave consequences. It is not farfetched to assume that people who have experienced this once, will not be very eager to participate in an experiment with additional income.

References

Arum, R., & Shavit, Y. (1995). Secondary vocational education and the transition from school to work. Sociology of Education, 68(3), 187–204. https://doi.org/10.2307/2112684
CrossRef Google Scholar
Becker, G. S. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. New York: Columbia University Press.
Google Scholar
Betkó, J. G. (2018). Het Nijmeegse experiment met de Participatiewet. Sociaal Bestek, 80(3), 34–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41196-018-0070-2
CrossRef Google Scholar
Boffey, D. (2015) Dutch city plans to pay citizens a ‘basic income’, and greens say it could work in the UK, the Guardian, 26 December. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com
Bregman, R. (2014). Gratis geld voor iedereen. Amsterdam: De Correspondent.
Google Scholar
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (1963). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for research. In N. L. Gage (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 171–246). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Google Scholar
CBS. (2017) 55-plussers minder snel aan de slag dan jongere groepen. Retrieved June 8, 2019 from www.cbs.nl
De Wispelaere, J., Halmetoja, A., & Pulkka, V.-V. (2018). The rise (and fall) of the basic income experiment in Finland. CESifo Forum, 3(19), 15–18.
Google Scholar
Deater-Deckard, K., & Scarr, S. (1996). Parenting stress among dual-earner mothers and fathers: Are there gender differences? Journal of Family Psychology, 10(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.10.1.45
CrossRef Google Scholar
Delsen, L. (2016) The realisation of the participation society. Welfare state reform in the Netherlands: 2010–2015, IMR Working Paper NiCE16-02, Nijmegen center for economics (NiCE), institute for management research, Nijmegen: Radboud University. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305083246_The_realisation_of_the_participation_society_Welfare_state_reform_in_the_Netherlands_2010-2015
Divosa. (2015). Divosa-monitor factsheet (2015-II): Parttime werk in de bijstand. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.divosa.nl/sites/default/files/publicatie_bestanden/20150630_factsheet_parttime_werk_in_de_bijstand.pdf
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(3), 159–181. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.229149
CrossRef Google Scholar
Greenberg, D. H., & Shroder, M. (2004). The digest of social experiments. The Urban Institute: Washington, DC.
Google Scholar
Groot, L., Muffels, R. J., & Verlaat, T. (2019). Welfare states’ social investment strategies and the emergence of Dutch experiments on a minimum income guarantee. Social Policy & Society, 18(2), 277–287. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746418000283
CrossRef Google Scholar
Hamilton, T. B. (2016) The Netherlands’ upcoming money-for-nothing experiment, The Atlantic, Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com
Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2014). On the psychology of poverty. Science, 344(6186), 862–867. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1232491
CrossRef Google Scholar
Heckman, J. J., & Smith, J. A. (1995). Assessing the case for social experiments. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(2), 85–110. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.9.2.85
CrossRef Google Scholar
Heckman, J., Hohmann, N., Smith, J., & Khoo, M. (2000). Substitution and dropout bias in social experiments: A study of an influential social experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(2), 651–694. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300554764
CrossRef Google Scholar
Higgins, J. P. T, Green, S. (2011). Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane collaboration. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from www.handbook.cochrane.org
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Google Scholar
Jeffords, S. (2018, 31 August). March 2019 to mark end of Ontario’s basic income pilot. Global News. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://globalnews.ca
King, G., Keohane, R. O., & Verba, S. (1994). Designing social inquiry: Scientific inference in qualitative research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
CrossRef Google Scholar
Klandermans, B. (1984). Mobilization and participation: Social-psychological expansisons of resource mobilization theory. American Sociological Review, 49(5), 583–600. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095417
CrossRef Google Scholar
Kluve, J. (2010). The effectiveness of European active labor market programs. Labour Economics, 17(6), 904–918. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2010.02.004
CrossRef Google Scholar
Lötters, F., Carlier, B., Bakker, B., Borgers, N., Schuring, M., & Burdorf, A. (2013). The influence of perceived health on labour participation among long term unemployed. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 23(2), 300–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-012-9398-5
CrossRef Google Scholar
Matud, M. P. (2004). Gender differences in stress and coping styles. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(7), 1401–1415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2004.01.010
CrossRef Google Scholar
Moynihan, D., Herd, P., & Harvey, H. (2014). Administrative burden: Learning, psychological, and compliance costs in citizen-state interactions. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 25(1), 43–69. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muu009
CrossRef Google Scholar
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. New York: Times BooksMacmillan.
Google Scholar
Ptacek, J. T., Smith, R. E., & Dodge, K. L. (1994). Gender differences in coping with stress: When stressor and appraisals do not differ. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(4), 421–430. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167294204009
CrossRef Google Scholar
Ranshuijsen, A., & Westerveld, E. (2015, 27 January). Durf lokaal experiment met basisinkomen aan. De Gelderlander.
Google Scholar
Renema, J. A., & Lubbers, M. (2018). Welfare-based income among immigrants in the Netherlands: Differences in social and human capital. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 17(2), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2017.1420276
CrossRef Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1977). Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 6(4), 317–344. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2264946
Google Scholar
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Google Scholar
Slonim, R., Wang, C., Garbarino, E., & Merrett, D. (2013). Opting-in: Participation bias in economic experiments. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 90, 43–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2013.03.013
CrossRef Google Scholar
Smith, J. A. (2000). A critical survey of empirical methods for evaluating active labor market policies, Department of Economics Research Reports 2000-6. London (ON): Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario.
Google Scholar
Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374.
CrossRef Google Scholar
Standing, G. (2017). Basic income and how we can make it happen. London: Pelican Books.
Google Scholar
Suchman, E. A., & McCandless, B. (1940). Who answers questionnaires? The Journal of Applied Psychology, 24(6), 758–769. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0063437
CrossRef Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Google Scholar
Tinnemans, W. (2014). Participatiewet wordt een drama, Sociale Vraagstukken. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from www.socialevraagstukken.nl
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453–458. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7455683
CrossRef Google Scholar
Ultee, W., Dessens, J., & Jansen, W. (1988). Why does unemployment come in couples? An analysis of (un)employment and (non)employment homogamy tables for Canada, the Netherlands and the United States in the 1980’s. European Sociological Review, 4(2), 111–122. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.esr.a036471
CrossRef Google Scholar
Van Doorn, M., Scheepers, P., & Dagevos, J. (2013). Explaining the integration paradox among small immigrant groups in the Netherlands. Journal of Immigration and Integration, 14(2), 381–400. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-012-0244-6
CrossRef Google Scholar
van Geuns, R. (2013). Every picture tells a story. Armoede: Een gedifferentieerd verschijnsel. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Google Scholar
Vliegenthart, A. (2016). Versoepel tegenprestatie en kostdelersnorm. Sociale Vraagstukken. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from www.socialevraagstukken.nl
Westerveld, E. (2015). Motie: Experimenteer met vertrouwen. Retrieved June 8, 2019, from https://nijmegen.groenlinks.nl/

Download references

Acknowledgements

This project was possible due to the municipality of Nijmegen, which instigated, organised and funded the experiment; the European Commission, who generously contributed by means of an ESF-SITS grant; and the Ministry of Social Affairs (SZW), who gave permission to deviate from the Participation Act and provided assistance in practical ways.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Radboud Social Cultural Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
János Betkó, Niels Spierings, Maurice Gesthuizen & Peer Scheepers

Authors

János Betkó
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Niels Spierings
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Maurice Gesthuizen
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Peer Scheepers
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to János Betkó .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Department of Economics, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Assoc. Prof. Lei Delsen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Betkó, J., Spierings, N., Gesthuizen, M., Scheepers, P. (2019). The Who and the Why? Selection Bias in an Unconditional Basic Income Inspired Social Assistance Experiment. In: Delsen, L. (eds) Empirical Research on an Unconditional Basic Income in Europe. Contributions to Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30044-9_6

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30044-9_6
Published: 28 November 2019
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-30043-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-30044-9
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)