PhD scholarship in quantitative longitudinal analysis of social protection - Social protection as an investment in capabilities and human rights

This PhD project is embedded in the Re-InVEST.be project (2020-2024). The research will focus on the link between social protection, housing and health. Key research questions in all three areas will relate to accessibility and adequacy of rights, as well as the (mutually reinforcing) effects of social (dis)investment on the ‘beings and doings’ of households and individuals. The research will also include an evaluation of existing policy packages and recommendations for more effective anti-poverty strategies. The theoretical framework builds on capabilities and human rights as building blocks for the social inclusion and wellbeing of individuals. Poverty can result from a lack of resources, constraining conversion factors, and/or lack of rights and free choice. From a dynamic perspective, poverty can in turn constrain households’ investment in their own resources (housing, education, health etc.), thus ending up in vicious circles of deprivation. Social investment-related measures may therefore affect individual capabilities in many ways: by investing in (tangible or intangible) assets, by transferring financial resources that allow households to invest in themselves, by strengthening their rights and freedoms through regulations, or indirectly, by strengthening the agency of collectives that interact with vulnerable people. During the project, quantitative analyses on a variety of (linked) STATBEL and EU-SILC datasets will be combined with participatory qualitative research.