New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Public services

A public service is a service which is provided by government to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income. Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are usually subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors. Public service is also a course that can be studied at a college and/or university.

Public services tend to be those considered to be so essential to modern life that for moral reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed. They may be associated with fundamental human rights (such as the right to water). The Volunteer Fire Dept. and Ambulance Corps. are institutions with the mission of servicing the community. A service is helping others with a specific need or want. Here, service ranges from a doctor curing an illness, to a repair person, to a food pantry.

A public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public good (being non-rivalrous and non-excludable), but most are services which may (according to prevailing social norms) be under-provided by the market. In most cases public services are services, i.e. they do not involve manufacturing of goods. They may be provided by local or national monopolies, especially in sectors which are natural monopolies.

They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort and/or hard to measure in terms of key characteristics such as quality. They often require high levels of training and education. They may attract people with a public service ethos who wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work.

Related Stories
 


Science & Society News

August 1, 2025

Women who drank heavily, even though they strongly wished to avoid pregnancy, were 50% more likely to become pregnant than those who drank little or not at all, according to new research. Surprisingly, cannabis use didn t show the same ...
Between 2020 and 2024, COVID-19 vaccines saved 2.5 million lives globally, preventing one death for every 5,400 doses. A groundbreaking worldwide study led by researchers from Università Cattolica and Stanford University reveals that most lives ...
Scientists at the University of Toronto have developed a new non-stick material that rivals the performance of traditional PFAS-based coatings while using only minimal amounts of these controversial ...
AI-generated videos are becoming dangerously convincing and UC Riverside researchers have teamed up with Google to fight back. Their new system, UNITE, can detect deepfakes even when faces aren't ...
Even people who never caught Covid-19 may have aged mentally faster during the pandemic, according to new brain scan research. This large UK study shows how the stress, isolation, and upheaval of lockdowns may have aged our brains, especially in ...
A surprising discovery from Emory University shows that psilocin, the active metabolite of psychedelic mushrooms, can delay cellular aging and extend lifespan. Human cells lived over 50% longer, and mice treated with psilocybin not only lived 30% ...
In a groundbreaking UK first, eight healthy babies have been born using an IVF technique that includes DNA from three people—two parents and a female donor. The process, known as pronuclear ...
President Trump s diagnosis of Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI) has brought renewed attention to a frequently overlooked yet dangerous condition. CVI affects the ability of veins especially in the legs to return blood to the heart, often leading ...
Medieval medicine is undergoing a reputation makeover. New research reveals that far from being stuck in superstition, early Europeans actively explored healing practices based on nature, observation, and practical experience—some of which ...
A massive spike in young children accidentally ingesting nicotine pouches has alarmed poison control researchers, with a 763% rise reported between 2020 and 2023. Unlike other nicotine products, ...
Movement helps your mood, but it's not one-size-fits-all. Exercising for fun, with friends, or in enjoyable settings brings greater mental health benefits than simply moving for chores or obligations. Researchers emphasize that context — who ...
Less than a quarter of us hit WHO activity targets, but a new UCL study suggests the trick may be matching workouts to our personalities: extroverts thrive in high-energy group sports, neurotics ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET