Project description
Interaction between volatility, social policies and household strategies
Income targeting in European welfare policies aims to enhance efficiency, but real-world examples highlight its limitations. Research should focus on how policies interact with household income fluctuations and coping strategies. The ERC-funded VOLARE project aims to clarify the relationship between fluctuating incomes, household strategies, and social policy design across different contexts. The theoretical framework suggests that households use both formal and constrained strategies when dealing with income volatility, focusing on either short-term management or long-term goals. The project will evaluate this relationship using a mixed-methods approach, combining monthly income data from over 240 low- to middle-income families in four European countries. The findings are expected to significantly advance research on income volatility, social policy, and household strategies.
Objective
Income targeting has permeated social policy design in European welfare states, in order to boost their efficiency and effectiveness. Yet real-life examples of integrated income-targeted schemes highlight the shortcomings of an overly technocratic view. Social policy research needs to analyse how policy design interacts with the month-to-month income variability experienced by households, and the strategies they develop to cope with and navigate this volatility.
VOLARE disentangles the relationship between fluctuating incomes, household navigating strategies and social policy design in different institutional contexts. VOLARE’s theoretical framework argues that a) households employ both formal and constrained strategies in the face of volatile incomes, that can be focused on short-term juggling of incomes, or oriented towards longer-term objectives; b) the welfare state context and households’ preferences for stability influence the adopted strategies, but c) with their strategies households also actively navigate the eligibility and entitlement criteria determining the accessibility, timeliness and effectiveness of social policy responses. VOLARE assesses the implications of this interaction for effective social policy design.
The framework is scrutinized empirically within an innovative mixed-methods design that links consecutive quantitative monthly incomes collected among over 240 low to middle-income families in four European countries, with in-depth interviews on the strategies selected households develop to navigate volatile incomes. These findings are confronted with nationally representative month-to-month volatility estimates and welfare state responses. A survey experiment adds further substance as to how households value stability over income, given their access to formal or constrained navigating strategies.
In doing so, VOLARE forces a major breakthrough in the research on income volatility, social policy effectiveness and household strategies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.