Perceptions of social protection, financial improvement, and financial independence: Evidence from a survey of social assistance recipients in Kazakhstan

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Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Social protection is critical in supporting vulnerable populations and promoting socioeconomic well-being. However, evidence on how recipients evaluate the adequacy of social assistance, the quality of its implementation, and its contribution to financial improvement remains limited, particularly in transition economies. This study examines how recipients of social assistance in Kazakhstan perceive institutional implementation, financial improvement, and the capacity of social assistance to support financial independence. The empirical analysis is based on a structured survey conducted in Kazakhstan in March 2026 among 202 respondents, of whom 167 reported receiving social assistance and constituted the main analytical sample. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation analysis, ordered logistic regression, mediation analysis, average marginal effects, and binary logistic robustness checks were employed to examine associations between institutional and socioeconomic factors. Only 14.5% of recipients reported financial improvement lasting more than one year, while 88.4% of valid respondents supported combining social assistance with employment programs. Among the variables included in the estimated models, statistically significant associations were observed primarily for institutional characteristics. Stratified 10-fold cross-validation yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.756 and a classification accuracy of 71.5%. Overall, the findings suggest that institutional implementation and the perceived adequacy of social assistance are associated with more favorable evaluations of financial well-being and financial independence among recipients.

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    • Figure 1. Research design and empirical framework
    • Table 1. Demographic characteristics
    • Table 2. Socio-economic indicators and their measurement parameters
    • Table 3. Descriptive statistics of variables
    • Table 4. Financial improvement and assistance sufficiency
    • Table 5. Perceptions of social assistance and employment programs
    • Table 6. Evaluation of targeting and application procedures
    • Table 7. Distribution of Administrative Burden Index
    • Table 8. Correlation matrix
    • Table 9. Ordered logistic regression (odds ratios) for assistance independence
    • Table 10. Ordered logistic regression (odds ratios) for improvement duration
    • Table 11. Nonlinear mediation effects of ABI through PROC_EVAL
    • Table 12. AME summary
    • Table 13. Binary logistic regression for perceived financial independence
    • Table 14. Model performance
    • Table 15. Hypotheses testing results
    • Table A1. Questionnaire
    • Conceptualization
      Tolkyn Kakizhanova, Asel Sagynbay
    • Investigation
      Tolkyn Kakizhanova, Galiya Dauliyeva
    • Methodology
      Tolkyn Kakizhanova, Asel Sagynbay
    • Visualization
      Tolkyn Kakizhanova, Galiya Dauliyeva
    • Writing – original draft
      Tolkyn Kakizhanova
    • Formal Analysis
      Galiya Dauliyeva, Assem Kaliyeva
    • Validation
      Galiya Dauliyeva, Assem Kaliyeva
    • Writing – review & editing
      Galiya Dauliyeva, Asel Sagynbay, Assem Kaliyeva, Gulzada Shinet
    • Funding acquisition
      Asel Sagynbay
    • Project administration
      Asel Sagynbay
    • Supervision
      Asel Sagynbay
    • Data curation
      Assem Kaliyeva, Gulzada Shinet
    • Software
      Assem Kaliyeva
    • Resources
      Gulzada Shinet
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Problems and Perspectives in Management
Problems and Perspectives in Management