Measuring Changes Over Time to Understand the Dynamics of Access to State Benefit: Territorial Inequalities in the Implementation of Social Policies on Ageing

Résumé 0

Since the 1980s, the articulation of public policies, particularly in European countries, has been characterised by a trend towards territorialisation, which equates to the differentiated application of national policies according to the territories. This trend raises the issue of equality of access to state benefits within a population, given the diversity of territorial realities. This is the issue that we propose to explore, based on the study of French social policies on ageing: the Personalized Allowance for Autonomy (APA). Based on an original method of trajectory analysis (the sequence analysis) and using administrative data on APA between 2004 and 2019, this article has a triple objective. Firstly, it presents an innovative methodology in the analysis of public policies. Secondly, from the point of view of the differences observed in the implementation of social assistance, it aims to distinguish between those attributable to the population' s characteristics and those resulting from the implementation by street-level bureaucrats and administrations. Finally, it draws a comprehensive territorial portrait of 16 years of deployment of APA in France. This article shows that with the increased number of recipients of this welfare policy instrument for supporting older people, territorial differences in the allocation of APA do not remain stable but change over time. Our study demonstrates the full relevance of sequence analysis for capturing the dynamics of social policies and reporting phenomena— here the way of influence of street level bureaucrats and/or administration on a state benefit — that are difficult to observe using other statistical methodologies.