We study how social identity and socioeconomic status shape citizens’ expectations about administrative treatment in social services using a randomized survey–vignette experiment administered online to 1,700 adult residents of the Valencian Community (Spain). Respondents were assigned to two modules: (i) a vignette that varies the applicant’s name/national origin, and (ii) a vignette that varies socioeconomic status for an otherwise identical male applicant seeking dependency benefits. In the first module, participants predict higher odds of satisfactory attention and a higher likelihood of obtaining the benefit for applicants of migrant origin relative to national applicants, and more often attribute potential failure for the national applicant to lack of official interest and to the absence of other help. In the second module, the high‑status profile is expected to receive better attention, succeed more often, and face fewer failures due to officials’ lack of interest. These treatment effects vanish among university‑educated respondents and are amplified among those with lower education; perceived discrimination also attenuates among respondents who self‑report low knowledge of the system. Taken together, the evidence indicates that expectations of administrative outcomes are causally shaped by identity and status signals and interact with information frictions and education, underscoring the value of simplified procedures and credibility‑enhancing communication in social policy delivery.

Our results speak to the parochialism literature—where canonical accounts predict in‑group favoritism and ethnic favoritism in the allocation of public goods and bureaucratic attention—by documenting anticipated out‑group advantage for migrants in a European welfare context. This pattern contrasts with widely observed parochial tendencies (e.g., ethnic fragmentation lowering public‑goods provision or national parochialism in cooperation) and aligns with recent arguments that parochialism is context‑dependent and varies with frames and ideology