Continuation on a waiting list may signal low need rather than urgent need.
Evidence
Some social agencies act as if the waiting list usefully filters potential clients who are truly in need of service and strains out those whose needs are not substantial and who thus drop off. This system of rationing may also provide for a period of time in which spontaneous recuperation may occur, again reserving client spaces only for those who are needy. However, it is uncertain whether continuation on the list is a sign of substantial need or precisely the opposite, a sign that the potential client is successful enough in managing the problem that he or s}{e can wait patiently for services. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 706
Categorization
- QUESTION: Does waiting itself act as an ability-to-wait screen that filters out everyone except the resigned and the resourceful, rather than filtering by need? Worth chasing against modern triage data.
- XREF: Connects to the ‘family narratives and social reproduction’ material on how administrative gatekeeping decisions get read back as evidence about the people sorted. — connects to: Waiting-list persistence is ambiguous evidence of genuine client need; First-come, first-served queues ration service toward those whose time is cheap.
- SEED: Essay angle: waiting rooms as a modern technology of sorting — how queues produce their own social categories.