Rule bending on the frontlines of public service delivery: how and why caseworkers favor the strong

Abstract

When facing a disobedient client, caseworkers are often required to impose sanctions. Even when sanctions are explicitly required by law, however, research shows that caseworkers may turn a blind eye. Why so? This study asks how certain clients can merit themselves to avoid sanctioning. Theorizing from the notion of client deservingness, we develop a theoretical account of how certain client attributes cause frontline workers to bend the rules. Drawing from a novel conjoint experiment among Danish unemployment caseworkers (n = 407 with 1,210 observations), we show how caseworkers tend to favor stronger clients when bending the rules in clients’ favor. Clients who appear motivated, who have not been sanctioned in the past, and who have more past job experience are all less likely to be sanctioned. Our findings reveal a paradox: Although welfare usually targets clients in need, avoiding welfare sanctions seems based on client resources. Consequently, caseworker rule-bending can have unintended distributional consequences since stronger clients are those who can get away with disobedience.