Social protection in Romania during the COVID-19 pandemic: who received non-financial support and who was left out?

Governments’ responses to the needs of social protection during the COVID-19 pandemic can constitute an analytical framework for developing better future strategies for crisis contexts. We study which groups of the Romanian population accessed measures of specific non-financial social protection between 2020 and 2022. Data collected through a national probabilistic representative survey (N > 1,000) allows us to use inferential statistics to explore relationships between individuals’ expectations of a welfare state, different types of potential vulnerabilities and their probability of benefiting from a series of measures of social protection. First, individuals’ high expectations of a welfare state increase their probability of being among those who accessed social protection. Secondly, the analyzed programs successfully responded to the needs of social protection of some vulnerable categories linked to disabilities, health problems and economic difficulties. Controlling for the economic wellbeing of the household and other factors, we found a higher statistically significant probability of being left out for individuals who live in households which include minor children and for those who were facing serious emotional issues (loneliness, anxiety, sadness, etc.). These findings from Romania hold relevance for broader European contexts, prompting discourse on the necessity for better calibration of social protection amidst crises.