Workload and Bureaucratic Disentitlement: Evidence from Public Assistance in Japan

This study examines whether variations in workload influence rationing behavior in welfare provision by Japanese local governments. Exploiting exogenous changes in welfare caseloads resulting from a large wave of municipal mergers, it analyzes how workload size affects the number of welfare applications, withdrawals, and rejections at the city level. Controlling for pre-existing caseloads, the analysis finds that an increase in caseworker staffing (i.e., a reduction in workload) leads to more applications and withdrawals, but does not affect rejections. Notably, the increase in applications exceeds the increase in withdrawals, resulting in a net rise in accepted applications. Moreover, the positive effects of increased caseworker capacity on applications and withdrawals are more pronounced under heavier workloads. These results suggest that Japanese welfare offices may rely on informal forms of rejection. Overall, the findings support the Type I error explanation of bureaucratic disentitlement—where eligible individuals are erroneously excluded—as emphasized in the literature, rather than the Type II error explanation associated with the “cursory assessment†hypothesis advanced by the Japanese government.