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Where the need is greatest: a comparison of the perceived working conditions of social workers in Swedish metropolitan low-, middle-and high-income areas in 2003 and 2014
University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, Department of Social Work and Psychology, Social work.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4155-810X
2018 (English)In: Nordic Social Work Research, ISSN 2156-857X, E-ISSN 2156-8588, Vol. 8, no 2, p. 185-200Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This study is the third in a series of studies comparing the development of the working conditions of child welfare social workers in Sweden during the last decade. The same questionnaire was distributed in 2014 (n = 349) to the social workers handling investigations of children and youth who were working with the same types of tasks in the districts previously investigated in 2003 (n = 309). The questionnaire (QPS Nordic) contained questions about their job content, role conflicts, demands, organisational climate, job satisfaction and intention to leave the workplace or change profession. The aim of the present study was to analyse this development in relation to the low-income, middle-income and high-income districts where the social workers were employed. The results reveal two different patterns. The first concerns the social workers’ perception of their work tasks where the situation seems to have deteriorated in all three income areas but more so in the low income areas. Furthermore, the social workers’ intention to leave the workplace and health problems had increased overall, but were more pronounced in the low income areas. The second pattern concerns the differences in the social workers’ perception of their workplace in terms of support, leadership and organisational climate. In the low-income areas the social workers today are significantly less satisfied with how their organisations function than their colleagues were in 2003, whereas the social workers in the other areas today seem significantly more satisfied than in 2003. The consequences of these changes and their probable background are discussed.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 8, no 2, p. 185-200
Keywords [en]
Child welfare, working conditions, questionnaire, social workers
National Category
Social Work Work Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-22944DOI: 10.1080/2156857X.2017.1326975OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hig-22944DiVA, id: diva2:1051524
Part of project
Socialsekreterares arbetsvillkor - vad bidrar till arbetstillfredsställelse och stabilitet?, Afa SjukförsäkringsaktiebolagAvailable from: 2016-12-02 Created: 2016-12-02 Last updated: 2021-02-24Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • sv-SE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • de-DE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf