Association between individual level characteristics and take-up of a Minimum Income Guarantee for Pensioners : Panel Data Analysis using data from the British Household Panel survey 1999-2002

Brown, Heather and Albani, Viviana and Munford, Luke Aaron and Sutton, Matt and McHardy, Fiona and Silverman, Eric and Richiardi, Matteo and Pearce, Anna and Heppenstall, Allison and Meier, Petra and Thomson, Rachel and Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal (2024) Association between individual level characteristics and take-up of a Minimum Income Guarantee for Pensioners : Panel Data Analysis using data from the British Household Panel survey 1999-2002. Social Science and Humanities. ISSN 2590-2911 (In Press)

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Abstract

A Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) ensures people have a minimum amount of income for essentials such as healthy food, housing, health care, social and digital networks to support health and well-being. MIGs could be a useful tool to reduce inequalities. A MIG will only be effective if those who are eligible take it up. The aim of this paper is to explore how individual characteristics were associated with take-up of a MIG for pensioners (aged 60+ for women and aged 65+ for men) in England. The data used is from the British Household Panel Survey including 9430 observations from 1,893 people, from 1999-2002. We estimated a random effects logistic regression. Results show that women were less likely to claim than men (OR ranging from 0.17 [95% CI 0.10-0.29]-0.73 [95% CI 0.40-1.34]), and couples were less likely to claim (OR ranging from 0.04 [95% CI 0.03-0.06]-0.01 [95%CI 0.01-0.02] ) than single person households. People with better mental health (OR 1.05 95% CI 1.02-1.08), older pensioners (75+) (OR ranging from 1.98 [95% CI 1.52-2.59]-2.81 [95%CI 2.16-3.67]), those who were registered disabled (OR 4.03 95% CI 2.50-6.52), and those with no formal qualification (OR ranging from 1.74 [95%CI 0.93-3.26]-2.07 [95% CI 1.22-3.51]) were more likely to claim. Understanding who is likely to claim MIGs is important to avoid social security policy inadvertently increasing inequalities.