Although people in poverty are formally entitled to welfare rights, recent research shows that they often do not take up these rights in practice. Hence, this research project aims to acquire thorough insights in the complex processes at play in the (non-)take-up of welfare rights in situations of poverty and to examine the role of social work in this context. The project builds on three basic premises: (1) it captures the (non-)take-up of welfare rights in the interplay between the agency of people in poverty and the structural resources made available to them; (2) it employs a multidimensional definition of the non-take-up of welfare rights, which takes account of material as well as immaterial structural resources; and (3) it adopts a research approach that embraces the inherent dynamics in people’s lives in order to deepen our knowledge about the complex processes at stake in the (non-)take-up of welfare rights in situations of poverty. The interpretative paradigm of life world orientation is used as an innovative theoretical framework that enables us to
profoundly examine how social workers can realize welfare rights by building upon the everyday experiences and strategies of people who do not receive or make use of their welfare rights. Considering these points of departure, we methodologically rely on the pathways approach, which offers opportunities to systematically explain the dynamics underpinning the (non-)take-up of welfare rights.