Global research trajectories in the digital transformation of welfare governance and India’s specific contribution from 2016 to 2025

Abstract

Governments worldwide are embedding digital platforms, biometric identity systems, and algorithmic tools into the delivery of social protection, yet the research field charting this shift has received little systematic bibliometric mapping. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the digital welfare state literature indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index of the Web of Science, drawing on 737 articles published between 2016 and 2025 together with an India-specific set of 38 articles. It combines keyword co-occurrence mapping with an interpretive synthesis, and introduces a relevance classification that separates core welfare-governance research from adjacent and peripheral records. Annual output rose from 32 articles in 2016 to 115 in 2025, growth that coincided with the expansion of digital welfare delivery during and after the COVID-19 period. Seven global research trends are identified, and the Indian literature is organised into three developmental phases that yield frameworks of wider relevance. Across the literature mapped, digital welfare infrastructure is consistently documented as expanding coverage at scale while producing systematic exclusions along lines of biometric legibility, digital literacy, and social power. On this basis the study sets out policy implications for equitable welfare governance and priority directions for future research.