A Three-Year Comparison of Global Social Worker Working Conditions

Social workers play a vital role in the lives of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. However, evidence increasingly shows that social workers across the world are exposed to chronically difficult working conditions. This study seeks to outline the influence of working conditions on well-being of social workers worldwide, and compare whether working conditions and well-being changed across a three-year period via a two-phase cross-sectional survey. The survey aimed to measure these working conditions and well-being at a national level across the world. Results demonstrated significant differences in six of seven conditions measured, with each of demands, control, role understanding, change communication and psychological well-being worsening across time. These changes were particularly mirrored in European social workers. However, North American social work respondents saw improvements in role understanding and relationships with colleagues. Policy makers, professional organisations and employers need to pay attention to these findings and consider methods to be undertaken which can improve on these findings, because without improvements we will see declining working conditions and well-being in the sector, with all of the knock-on effects on vulnerable individuals and families that go along with the decline. Social workers have an impact on the individuals and families that they work with, as well as having positive impacts on the societies that social work is practiced in. Similarly, good working conditions and well-being in social work not only have a positive impact on service users, but also mean better working lives for social workers themselves. Unfortunately, research is continually showing that social workers around the world have poor working conditions. The aim of this article is to outline the findings of a global survey looking at working conditions and well-being in social workers, and compare these findings to those from three years ago. We found that both working conditions and well-being in social workers across much of the world has gotten worse over the last three years, with these working conditions also affecting psychological well-being. We argue that both employers and policy makers need to take heed of these findings, because worse working conditions and well-being for social workers also mean poorer outcomes for the service users they work so hard to support.