Claiming deservingness

The durability of social security claimant discourses during the Covid-19 pandemic

Bibliographic Data

ID3258093
AuthorsKate Summers (0000-0001-9964-0259, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author), Daniel Edmiston (0000-0001-8715-654X, Department of Political Science and Public Law, Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain; Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Ben Baumberg Geiger (0000-0003-0341-3532, King's College London), Jo Ingold (0000-0001-8088-8262, Peter Faber Business School, Australian Catholic University, Australia), Lisa Scullion (0000-0001-5766-3241, University of Salford), Robert De Vries (0000-0002-6776-836X, University of Kent), David Young (0000-0002-4693-0663, University of Salford), David F Young (0000-0001-9757-7006, University of Salford)
Year2025
Publication date2025-05-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00380261251336544
OpenAlexW4410405545
LanguageEN
References cited54

The Covid-19 pandemic created extraordinary conditions for social protection systems globally, with both material and discursive implications. In the UK, these unprecedented circumstances led to an influx of (first-time) social security claims, expectations of increased social solidarity and more positive public discussion around benefits. One might expect this to affect attitudes towards claiming. This article focuses on the accounts of claimants themselves , and how they conceived of their own claims during the pandemic. We analyse in-depth interviews conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic with a large, diverse sample of social security benefit claimants, and draw on concepts of deservingness to show how social security claimants negated stigma through appealing to specific deservingness frames. We show how frames relating to the normative criteria of need, control, contribution and identity were deployed by those who began claiming during the pandemic, as well as those whose claim began pre-pandemic. Despite important points of variation, especially in relation to the categories of control and identity, we find that these deservingness frames did not appear to be disrupted in a major way by the pandemic context, suggesting their notable durability in extraordinary circumstances, with implications for the conditions that can (and cannot) precipitate discursive change or rupture

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) · Criminology · Outbreak · Pandemic · Plaintiff · Political science · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) · Social security · Sociology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Medicine · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Virology

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