A3 Access gap

Topic

The access gap is an anomaly occurring within the Services track where the quality of service received diverges consistently across different socioeconomic strata. As long as the quality of service remains uniform across socioeconomic strata, the Services track does not exhibit the segmentation that defines the access gap.

The access gap arises when this divergence in service quality across strata is sustained rather than fleeting; it is not enough for one stratum to receive a different quality of service than another for a brief period—the divergence must persist over time for the access gap to become entrenched as a structural segmentation of service quality based on socioeconomic status.

This sustained divergence in service quality is linked to Track 6—the socioeconomic behavior track: the very socioeconomic strata whose stratification and mobility are measured by Track 6 are the ones that, within the Services track, end up receiving varying levels of service quality depending on their position within that stratification.

Monitoring the quality of service received by socioeconomic stratum—and specifically whether any divergence between strata persists over time—is therefore a direct way to anticipate the access gap within the Services track before the segmentation of service quality by socioeconomic stratum becomes entrenched.

ID:4753