The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Default user image.

Håkan Johansson

Professor

Default user image.

The importance of discretion for welfare services to minorities : Examining workload and anti-immigration attitudes

Author

  • Carolin Schütze
  • Håkan Johansson

Summary, in English

Migration influx in Western countries resulting in increasingly diverse societies results in more complex situations for bureaucrats in their client interactions in welfare organizations. The role of discretion for services to clients has received much attention in the public administration research and therefore this study explores the relation among perceived workload, anti-immigration attitudes, perceived discretion, and perceived difficulty in working with migrants. The paper examines the function of perceived discretion as moderator or mediator variable in this constellation. The relations are examined by using structural equation modelling based on a survey among Swedish welfare bureaucrats (N = 1,319). The results show that heavier perceived workload increased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult and that greater perceived discretion decreased the likelihood of experiencing work with migrants as difficult. The results suggest that perceived discretion functions as a mediator for the relation between perceived workload and difficulty in work with migrants: potentially functioning as a ‘buffer’ for organizational pressure. We also found that bureaucrats who hold negative attitudes towards migrants were more likely to express their work with migrants as more difficult. This paper contributes to the public administration literature by increasing our knowledge on how discretion has significance in relation to when bureaucrat's behaviour is determined by specific organizational and personal factors.

Department/s

  • School of Social Work

Publishing year

2020-12

Language

English

Pages

426-443

Publication/Series

Australian Journal of Public Administration

Volume

79

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Social Work

Keywords

  • discretion
  • migration
  • quantitative methods
  • street-level bureaucracy
  • welfare organizations

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0313-6647