Making Evidence for “Age Tech”: How Welfare Agencies Shape Markets through Evaluation

• In Event: Market Codes: Bureaucrats, Brokers, and Algorithms

Abstract

The state shapes markets through various roles, typically portrayed by economic sociologists as a regulator or developmental actor. Yet, the state’s role as a consumer of market exchange is less understood—particularly, the process of discerning uncertainty as a consumer. This role is especially consequential in social services, where welfare agencies procure private goods and services while remaining publicly accountable for the care of vulnerable populations. Why and how does a welfare agency shape an emerging market by constructing evaluative procedures? I examine the case of New York State Office for Aging’s partnerships with firms providing eldercare technology (known as “Age Tech”) in 2024–2025, drawing on 45 interviews with state- and county-level agency workers and firm leaders. I find that, under high uncertainty and accountability pressure, agency workers leverage their bureaucratic autonomy to build evaluation procedures consisting of discretionary screenings and pilot tests. Although these procedures are intended for internal verification, the resulting “evidence” and symbolic certification are subsequently used by firms to expand into other markets. More broadly, the findings suggest that bureaucratic evaluation is a mechanism through which government agencies influence markets, bridging theories of state market-making, the delegated welfare state, and the sociology of evaluation.

Author

• Nayun Eom, Harvard University