Navigating Between Welfare Deservingness and Social Justice: Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Ethical Decision-Making in Social Work

This study examines how social workers interpret welfare deservingness and exercise professional discretion when implementing social protection programmes within a decentralised welfare system. Grounded in a human rights and social justice perspective, it explores how frontline professionals navigate tensions between institutional mandates, ethical commitments, and the realities of everyday practice. Using a qualitative design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 social workers responsible for managing the Social Integration Income programme across Portugal. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings show that welfare deservingness criteria—including control, attitude, reciprocity, identity, need, effort, and social investment—are interpreted in differentiated ways, reflecting ethical reasoning shaped by organisational contexts, resource constraints, and professional values. Decision-making emerged as a relational and context-dependent process, influenced by decentralised governance, heavy workloads, and collaborative practices that support equitable and person-centred interventions. Rather than representing unrestricted autonomy, professional discretion functioned both as an ethical mechanism for promoting human rights, social justice, and dignity and as a strategy for responding to systemic constraints. By integrating welfare deservingness theory, street-level bureaucracy, and a human rights–based social work perspective, this study advances understanding of how frontline professionals translate the principles of social justice into everyday welfare practice.