The Contented Older Client of Bureaucracy

Abstract

Interviews of 240 welfare clients as they departed from welfare offices in four U.S. cities indicate a marked tendency for older clients to be more satisfied than younger clients with treatment and services received in just-completed bureaucratic encounters. Other studies have shown similar tendencies. It is speculated that the phenomenon is a combination of pro-elderly discrimination on the part of bureaucrats and a tendency for older Americans subjectively to perceive their experiences with officialdom in a more favorable light.