The Role of Family in Career Choices among Social Workers in China

Abstract

High turnover rate affects social work workforce development in China. Few empirical studies have been conducted to explore the factors that have influences on turnover intention among Chinese social workers. This study used data from China General Survey on Professional Social Workers to examine the influence of job satisfaction and family attitude on social workers’ career choices. The findings reveal that both job satisfaction and family’ attitude toward the profession have significant effects on social workers’ turnover intention. Family’s support or disapproval of the social work profession has moderate effect on the negative correlation between job satisfaction and turnover intention. The findings could be explained by the familyism culture of Chinese society and unique challenges of professional development experienced by social workers in China. Future studies should consider the influence of family to develop a more comprehensive research framework. Management in social service agencies should help family of social workers to learn and embrace the profession to gain their support of choosing social work as career.     

Pathways from workplace flexibility to turnover intention: Role of work–family conflict,family–work conflict,and job satisfaction

This study examined the prevalence of workplace flexibility and the mechanisms that allow workplace flexibility to influence turnover intentions through work–family and family–work conflicts and job satisfaction among low‐wage workers in South Korea. Participants included 250 low‐wage workers whose monthly salary was less than 2 million Korean won (approx. $1,900). The study results indicate that low‐wage workers have limited access to workplace flexibility and that workplace flexibility plays a significant protective role in reducing their turnover intention, indirectly by decreasing work–family conflicts and enhancing job satisfaction. This article also discusses the implications of these findings for labor policy and social work practice.     

The impact of job satisfaction on turnover intent: a test of a structural measurement model using a national sample of workers

For the past century, worker turnover has been of keen interest for both managers and researchers. Based upon the literature, a structural measurement model incorporating four core antecedents of turnover (i.e., demographic characteristics, work environment, job satisfaction, and turnover intent) was developed and tested using a national sample of American workers. The results indicate that the work environment is more important in shaping worker job satisfaction than are demographic characteristics, and that job satisfaction is a highly salient antecedent of turnover intent. Finally, job satisfaction is a key mediating variable between the work environment and turnover intent.     

Whether Professional Training Matters: Attitudinal Antecedents to the Turnover Intentions of Social Workers in Guangzhou,China

This study aims to identify whether the professional training of social workers has an effect on the attitudinal antecedents of turnover intention. This study investigated 395 trained and 353 non-trained social workers from the Integrated Family Service Centers in Guangzhou, China. It was found that professional education did not significantly alter the attitudinal antecedents to turnover intention. In both groups, a higher feeling of burnout or a lower level of organizational commitment produced a higher intention of turnover. Furthermore, the significant influences of burnout and organizational commitment were found to be respectively mediated by job satisfaction with professional association or job satisfaction with organizational environment. This study not only provides insights into the stabilization of the emerging workforce of Chinese social workers, but also poses serious questions about social work education.     

脱嵌型雇佣关系与农民工离职意愿——基于长三角和珠三角的问卷调查

近年来,“民工荒”愈演愈烈,劳工短缺成为中国经济发展必须面对的客观现实,在这一背景下,探讨农民工离职意愿具有重要意义。基于2010年7月对珠三角和长三角地区2 276位农民工调查数据的分析发现,未来五年内,65.4%的农民工有离职打算,其中新生代农民工离职意愿较高,珠三角农民工较长三角农民工离职意愿更高,已婚且与配偶在同一城市者离职意愿低。本文进一步探讨了工作嵌入对农民工离职意愿的影响后发现,农民工工作内和工作外的联接、适应和代价的程度越高,离职意愿越低。本文认为农民工的雇佣关系是一种“脱嵌型雇佣关系”,这是导致农民工高离职意愿的重要原因。本文还对“脱嵌型雇佣关系”的定义、维度和后果进行了初步阐述。     

Perception of job satisfaction, service effectiveness and burnout among Arab social workers in Israel

Over the past three decades, the topics of job satisfaction and burnout have become a major focus of interest in research and professional training in the field of social work. However, there is a serious lack of studies focusing on these issues in the context of Arab social workers in Israel. This paper presents the results obtained from a subsample of Arab participants in a national study of Israeli social workers. It focuses on the correlations between several career outcomes and organizational conditions such as role characteristics, work conditions, job mastery, and power. Challenge at work and job mastery were found to be the most significant and consistent predictors of the outcome results. The implications of the results are also discussed.     

Good Jobs,Bad Jobs?: Understanding The Quality of Aged Care Jobs,and Why It Matters

Much research on paid care work focuses on this work as care. An equally important issue is its characteristic as paid work. This paper focuses on the characteristics of jobs in Australian aged care facilities, using data from a comprehensive 2003 national survey of direct care workers in Australian aged care facilities. It shows that, on a range of characteristics including pay, aged care jobs compare quite well with other jobs held by Australians who have similar characteristics to aged care workers. Aged care jobs are certainly not unequivocally ‘bad’ jobs. Yet turnover rates amongst these workers are quite high. The paper shows that workers' expectations about remaining in the aged care sector depend largely on their experience of work, particularly their job satisfaction. Job satisfaction, in turn, is affected most by their experience of the work of caring. As in most workplaces, the ability to use their skills without hindrance is important. But care work offers distinctive rewards not captured by notions of professional identity and commitment. The paper concludes by suggesting that a focus on these distinctive rewards will be important in fully understanding paid care work as paid work.     

Validation of the ultra-short scale for measuring work engagement among social workers in Chinese contexts

Based on 683 valid questionnaires collected among a convenience sample of social workers from Hong Kong, Macau and three other cities in mainland China, this study investigated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the three-item ultra-short Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (C-UWES-3). The results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the discriminant validity of C-UWES-3 by differentiating its three items from other five items measuring emotional exhaustion and role ambiguity. The concurrent validity of C-UWES-3 was supported by its superior explanatory power to the original nine-item version of the scale (C-UWES-9) in relation to explaining social workers' turnover intention. The convergent validity of C-UWES-3 was supported by its correlations vis-à-vis factors in the job demands-resources model such as job demands, job resources, turnover intention and collective psychological ownership. The C-UWES-3 showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81). Overall, the C-UWES-3 demonstrates excellent psychometric properties for informing future research.     

The effect of newspaper feature articles on referrals to a child guidance clinic 1

This study investigates the key factors influencing turnover intentions of social workers, adopting a comparative approach within the two patterns. Based on planned behaviors theory, the personal attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived competences of social workers were measured to predict organizational and occupational turnover intention, with controlling variables being demographic factors, work-related factors, and professional perception. It was found that social workers from Guangzhou (as “autonomous-embedded” patterns) expressed stronger intention to leave their current organizations than did their counterparts in Beijing (as “dependent-embedded” patterns), and their attitudes played a salient role in the prediction of organizational or occupational turnover intention. However, personal attitude was not a determinant of either organizational or occupational turnover intention in Beijing. This research sheds light on the importance of subjective norms in dependent-embedded patterns, points out the dominant role of personal belief in autonomous-embedded patterns, and highlights the key role of job satisfaction in the turnover process.     

Professional Identity,Job Satisfaction,and Retention of Licensed Social Workers in Korea

This paper reports the results from a survey of 735 social workers in South Korea on their professional identity as a social worker, job satisfaction, and intention to leave the profession. The overall result shows that there was a high level of job satisfaction. Social workers' intention to leave the profession was significantly related to their integrated feelings of professional identity. This relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. Social workers' sense of professional identity can be tapped to help social workers feel adequate to carry out their professional responsibility. Boundaries of their practice should be well defined.     

Child welfare workers who are exhausted yet satisfied with their jobs: how do they do it?

In response to a study of Canadian child welfare workers that unexpectedly found participants scoring high on a measure of emotional exhaustion (burnout) and, at the same time, high on overall job satisfaction, this paper reviews research that has investigated these constructs in the social work literature as well as in selected studies from sociology, social psychology, management and women’s studies. The review reveals that some previous studies also report the coexistence of high levels of emotional exhaustion and strong job satisfaction in child welfare and social worker samples. Several studies have suggested that individual characteristics, including finding reward in helping others, having a commitment to the mandate of child welfare and believing that one’s labour is ‘making a difference’, contribute to satisfaction with child welfare work in spite of work overload and emotional exhaustion. Attributions regarding causes of exhaustion, coping strategies and goal orientation may also attenuate the expected negative effects of emotional exhaustion. Considerable evidence supports the positive influence of variables organizational managers can control, including job autonomy, supportive supervisors, workload, promotional opportunities and perception of personal safety. The degree to which this phenomenon is associated with female socialization and the ‘ethic of care’ underlying social work is discussed. Implications for child welfare research, practice and policy are offered.     

Does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain? A study of Australian social workers

The present study investigated the mediating effects of job satisfaction on the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain among Australian social workers. Data for the study were collected by an online survey of the membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers, yielding 439 usable responses. The results provide evidence that job satisfaction mediates the relationship between work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict and psychological strain. These findings contribute significantly to the social work literature on work–family interface and confirm the importance of developing and targeting not only strategies that aim to reduce work–family conflict, but also those that aim to increase job satisfaction among social workers.     

Job Satisfaction Among Volunteers With Personal Cancer Experience

ABSTRACT

This study explored job satisfaction among 753 cancer-experienced volunteers from hospital, palliative care, and community-based oncology settings in nine provinces across Canada. Based on a conceptual framework including three components of volunteering—antecedents, experiences, and consequences—a mixed-methods design to explore job satisfaction was used. Findings from the quantitative and qualitative inquiries indicated that the level of job satisfaction was high and stress was not reported as a major concern. The four themes related to job satisfaction from the volunteers’ responses included learning, personal growth, challenge, and giving back related to their own experience with cancer. Future research should further investigate the important role of job satisfaction for social service professionals for training, marketing, and recruiting, plus the need to explore supports to sustain oncology volunteers in this most challenging environment.     

Occupational Stress and Psychological Well-Being in Emergency Services

Sources of occupational stress and their impact on job satisfaction and psychological well-being were examined in a questionnaire survey of 617 Malaysian firefighters. The role of coping strategies and work motivation as moderating factors were also tested. Sources of occupational stress had significant reverse correlations with job satisfaction and well-being. The hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating effect of work motivation and coping strategies on job satisfaction and psychological well-being. The result suggested that coping strategies and work motivation are one of the potential moderating variables between sources of stress and job satisfaction.     

The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health

Jang SJ, Park R, Zippay A. The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 135–143 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The demands of balancing employment and family responsibilities strain the health and welfare of many employees worldwide, and social welfare policy analysts are increasingly attending to the factors that can alleviate such stress. The present study examined associations between the availability of work–life balance programs, employees' authority to arrange their own work hours, job satisfaction, and mental health among 1,293 employees in 50 companies in South Korea. The study is unique in its use of multilevel analysis in examining individual‐ and company‐level variables. The results add to the evidence regarding the positive relationship between the availability of scheduling control and work–life balance policies on the one hand, and job satisfaction and mental wellbeing, on the other.     

Short-term and long-term processes linking job stressors to father–child interaction

This study explores short-term and long-term processes through which daily job stressors may affect a father's relationship with his school-aged child. Fifteen male air traffic controllers (ATCs) described job stressors and parent–child interaction on three consecutive days. Objective measures of daily workload were also obtained. After a demanding day at work, fathers tended to be more behaviorally and emotionally withdrawn during interactions with their children at home. The emotional withdrawal finding was confirmed with both subjective and objective measures of high workload. There was also evidence of a direct spillover of negative feelings associated with distressing social experiences at work to expressions of anger and greater use of discipline during interactions with a child later in the day. The long-term impact of a chronically stressful work environment was also examined in a separate set of between-subjects analyses. A generally negative social climate at work was associated with a father's tendency to describe his interactions with a child as having a less positive and a more negative emotional tone. Coworkers' independent ratings of the social climate at work confirmed the finding of a long-term negative spillover effect.     

Linking Perceived External Prestige and Intentions to Leave the Organization: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction and Affective Commitment

ABSTRACT

The present study examines social workers' beliefs about the prestige that outsiders (e.g., patients, suppliers, competitors, and the public) attribute to their organization and the way these beliefs influence the social workers' commitment to the organization they work for, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions (i.e., intentions to leave the organization). We collected two primary data sets (N = 160 and N = 489, respectively) from social workers in nonprofit social service organizations in Israel in 2001 and 2002. In general, the results show that perceived (construed) external prestige results in higher employee commitment and satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to lower levels of intention to leave the organization. The implications of these findings for research on organizational image and employee commitment are discussed, with particular emphasis on social workers in nonprofit social service organizations.     

Job satisfaction and ‘welfare‐to‐work‘: is any job a good job for Australian single mothers?

This exploratory study sought to assess the job satisfaction of employed Australian single mothers who had mandatory employment participation requirements. In particular, we sought to identify the characteristics of the job and the individual that were closely associated with participant's job satisfaction. Self‐report data on job satisfaction, employment characteristics and parenting stress were collected from 155 employed single mothers. Participant job satisfaction was compared to female Australian population norms and linear regression analyses determined the job‐related and individual predictors of single mothers' job satisfaction. Findings from this exploratory study revealed that single mothers involved in a mandatory welfare‐to‐work program experienced significantly lower job satisfaction than the Australian female population. The individual variable, parental distress, negatively predicted each of the six job satisfaction domains while being employed on a casual basis was inversely associated with three domains (job security, work hours and overall job satisfaction). The Australian government purported that making the transition from welfare to work would improve wellbeing for program participants, under the assumption that ‘any job's a good job‘. However, the relatively low levels of job satisfaction experienced by single mothers in the current study provide little support for this assumption.     

Sources of social support,job satisfaction,and quality of life among childcare teachers

Although literature has suggested a link between social support and well-being, relatively little research has examined the association of social support with job satisfaction and quality of life for employees. This study aimed to investigate whether and how different sources of social support influenced quality of life in conjunction with job satisfaction among teachers. Two-hundred and eighty-one childcare teachers in Korea completed measures of social support, job satisfaction, and quality of life. The results revealed that while director and colleague support predicted job satisfaction, director and family support predicted quality of life after controlling for age and marital status. Furthermore, results showed that job satisfaction mediated the relationship between director support and quality of life. The findings suggest the protecting role of different sources of social support in teachers’ job experience and evaluation of life domains. Suggestions for future research and implications for improving childcare teachers’ quality of life are discussed.     

Results of a nationwide hospice and palliative care social work job analysis

The role of the hospice and palliative social worker is often ambiguous and misunderstood by colleagues and fellow team members. One reason for this is the lack of identified, clearly delineated roles, skills, and tasks employed by these specialty social workers in their daily work. This article summarizes the first nationwide job analysis of hospice and palliative social workers. A contextual, cross-sectional survey design was used to identify current and relevant job tasks from practicing hospice and palliative social workers. A sample of 482 social workers representing 46 states responded to a survey that included demographic questions and ranking of 152 tasks and importance to the position. Tasks were categorized into four broad categories: assessment and reevaluation; planning and intervention; death, grief, and bereavement; and professionalism; which includes subcategories consisting of multiple tasks and skills. Respondents identified performing a psychosocial assessment from a patient/family centered care perspective, assessment of the patient’s current and desired quality of life and of coping skills as the tasks most important to their role. This outline of the role of the hospice and palliative social worker was then used in the development of an evidence-based certification exam that may be required of those who want to receive specialty certification in the field.