Rebecca Hrstka, 22170179

Homework assignment: Discrimination and Administrative Burden in

The goal of this study was to answer the question whether “private, for-profit providers are
more likely to discriminate on ethnic grounds compared to publicly owned providers.”1 These
authors took a look at discrimination within access to public services, taking the Flemish
senior care market as observation subject. This implies that they observed if applicants
receive different treatment depending on whether they belong to a certain racial or ethical
minority. In order to do so, they sent out emails with either a Flemish or a Maghrebian name
to all publicly and privately operated nursing homes.

The article also discusses the three types of costs related to administrative burden that people
might have to pay when trying to get public services: The learning costs that are founded in
the system's inherent complexity, the challenge of navigating it, and the necessity of merely
being aware of the program and its qualifying requirements in order to benefit from it. The
psychological costs that arise from applicants' and participants' stress and sense of loss of
autonomy, as well as the prejudice associated with receiving government aid.

An interesting point that the article discusses is the importance frontline workers have and
how critical their influence on the three previously mentioned costs is. As mentioned in the
article, they “affect the difficulties clients may have in accessing services to which they are
entitled”.2 It is discussed how incentives in the public service market could give them motives
to discriminate some clients. Many public services are now provided by service providers
who compete for customers and are frequently subject to performance incentives with the
goal to succeed financially. One of the main theoretical explanations for why minority groups
could experience a greater administrative burden is due to these market-based incentives. It
has been suggested that frontline providers might be more likely to avoid expensive, labor-
intensive clients or prioritize clients who they believe have the best chance of succeeding in
terms of bureaucratic success criteria. Today, many public services are provided by
companies that compete for clients and frequently receive performance bonuses in order to
thrive financially. These market-based incentives are one of the key theoretical explanations
for why minority groups could be subject to a heavier administrative burden. It is suggested
that frontline service providers are more likely to avoid costly, labor-intensive clients or give
the highest priority to customers who they feel have the best possibility of meeting
bureaucratic success standards.

After sending out the emails to all Flemish elderly homes asking if the facility currently had a
place available, whether they had a waiting list and how to enroll, they used 2 outcome
measures: response rate and the information provided, notably the enrollment requirements.
The authors and myself included expected there to be more discrimination for Maghrebian
names than the Flemish ones, meaning lower response rate and less information provided. In
addition, there were two secondary measures: information comprehensiveness and
friendliness.

1
JILKE, Sebastian, VAN DOOREN, Wouter and RYS, Sabine, 2018. Discrimination and Administrative Burden in Public
Service Markets: Does a Public–Private Difference Exist?

2
JILKE, Sebastian, VAN DOOREN, Wouter and RYS, Sabine, 2018. Discrimination and Administrative Burden in Public
Service Markets: Does a Public–Private Difference Exist?
 Rebecca Hrstka, 22170179

They found out that Flemish care homes are moderate respondents, with a response rate of
71.7%. Overall, they observed discrimination being lower than expected. There was no
significant difference between the emails signed with a Maghrebian or Flemish name. This to
me is rather a surprise because of the evident racial discrimination in so many other fields. I
expected the minority group to be treated less as they could be perceived as harder to serve
given the fact that they have a different cultural background and might even speak a different
language. I myself, being multilingual, although I do not believe I have ever experienced full
discrimination because of it, have noticed throughout the years differences in attitude of
people simply depending on what language I speak with them. However, one thing to point
out is the fact that the response rate for public organizations was 16% higher than the private
ones. The study also shows that Maghrebian senders receive a response that has less complete
information for enrollment to the care home. This can be tied with the learning costs, as the
absence of it increases the learning costs, as the clients face more difficulty accessing that
information. However, the article states that it was not statistically drastic enough to be
perceived significant. This also personally came as a surprise to me. I had expected more
distinct discrimination.

But the sturdy shows that public-private differences do exist. When undergoing this study,
they did observe ethical discrimination within private, for-profit organizations. Although the
result numbers are much smaller than expected, when discrimination is observed it is within
the privately owned facilities. They were less likely to respond with clear and complete
information to emails coming from a Maghrebian name. This however did not come as
surprise to me as it is linked to the frontline workers that were discussed before and their
performance incentives. For-profit organization, no matter the market field have one clear
goal: to maximize profit. In this case it means serve as many clients as possible and therefore,
they chose to serve the majority, which are the local. They target the easily served clients and
therefore, in my opinion, the level of friendliness is higher for the Flemish.

So we could conclude that this study suggests that within private-for profit care houses, to
some extent, professional care standards may be driven by commercial motives. Frontline
professionalism appears to limit the act of disregarding a minority request, such as the
Maghrebian, but there are also more subtle and maybe unconscious practices that raise the
cost of learning for such a minority group. I do however believe it is critical to point out that I
believe that the market field matters and plays a role in the results of this study, as the
healthcare field holds more general professional standards in my opinion, compared to other
fields where organizations really choose and skim through the clients they wish to serve.

References:
JILKE, Sebastian, VAN DOOREN, Wouter and RYS, Sabine, 2018. Discrimination and
Administrative Burden in Public Service Markets: Does a Public–Private Difference Exist?
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 15 June 2018. Vol. 28, no. 3,
pp. 423–439. DOI 10.1093/jopart/muy009.

How To Address the Administrative Burdens of Accessing the Safety Net, 5 May 2022.
Center for American Progress. Online. [Accessed 19 September 2022]. Retrieved from:
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-address-the-administrative-burdens-of-
accessing-the-safety-net/

KINDER, Molly, 2020. Essential but undervalued: Millions of health care workers aren’t
getting the pay or respect they deserve in the COVID-19 pandemic. Brookings. Online. 28
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May 2020. [Accessed 19 September 2022]. Retrieved from: