Take-up and distribution of a universal cash benefit: The case of the Austrian long-term care allowance

The body of research on the take-up of social benefits is growing, but rarely focuses on universal cash benefits, especially in the field of long-term care. This paper is concerned with the long-term care (LTC) allowance in Austria, a universal cash benefit paid to those in need of LTC on seven different levels of dependency. It investigates whether take-up and distribution of the benefit reflect need in terms of age structure and health status of the population, and examines whether local variations in the distribution of benefits can be explained with socio-demographic variables. Combining administrative data on recipients and socio-demographic data on the municipal level with health information shows that higher levels of education and a higher share of foreigners are associated with a lower share of recipients, while a lower average household size increases the share of recipients. Overall, these variations are much stronger for lower levels of care needs than for higher ones. The results suggest variations in take-up that are determined either by non-application (in particular among lower levels of care needs) or discretion and potentially discrimination in the process of claiming the benefit.