Digitalisation of social protection in the new Eurofound report
As part of its role as Italian national correspondent for Eurofound, the EU Agency for the improvement of living and working conditions, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini contributed to the research report Digitalisation of social protection, which is available online on Eurofound website.
Drawing on academic literature, input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and Eurofound’s desk research, the report explores how digital transformation is reshaping social protection systems in EU Member States and Norway.
The FGB research team included Barbara De Micheli, Coordinator of FGB’s Social Justice Area; Michele Faioli, Professor of Labour Law at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and member of FGB's Scientific Committee; and Alessandro Smilari, Officer at FGB’s Social Justice Area.
While digitalisation offers major opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of social protection, it can also risk excluding digitally marginalised groups and reducing the human dimension of welfare systems.
The report analyses the degree of digitalisation across front and back-office processes for various monetary social benefits – including unemployment, sickness, maternity/paternity, disability, old age, work accident, minimum-income, child and housing benefits – and examines the role of the EU in supporting this transformation. It highlights key challenges, opportunities, mitigation measures and success factors observed across Member States and Norway.
To make digitalisation more inclusive and effective, the report recommends that policymakers:
- prioritise accessibility by considering the experience of people who apply for social benefits offline;
- implement rigorous testing and regular monitoring to detect and address problems early;
- engage stakeholders to maximise and clearly communicate the benefits of digitalisation;
- address digital, administrative and linguistic barriers, which can be amplified online;
- conduct inclusion audits and ensure continued access to non-digital support channels so that no one is left behind.
