Privatisation as professionalisation? Attitudes, motives and achievements among Swedish social workers

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between privatisation and professionalisation in social work. In social services, privatisation is often seen as a politically planned (policy-driven) process as part of liberalisation strategies for market orientation of the welfare state. However, there are several reasons to believe that there is also a process of spontaneous privatisation (sometimes driven by demand), where professionals go private and provide various types of services to local welfare authorities. In this article, our aim is to explore the extent, impact and consequences of such profession-driven privatisation and to discuss whether privatisation is a strategy for professionalisation.

This article investigates: (1) attitudes among social workers and social work students toward privatisation in general and private practice in particular; (2) the extent and types of activities being performed privately; (3) the motives whether or not to choose self-employment; (4) the differences between public and self-employed social workers in terms of professionalisation.

Data are based on surveys of 1,000 Swedish social workers and 801 social work students. The results show ambivalence among professionals toward privatisation. The authors discuss the reasons for this at an individual and collective level. Although the share of social workers in private practice in Sweden is low, between 6 and 8%, more than one third of Swedish social workers expect to be working in private practice within 10 years. The circumstances faced by self-employed social workers, who rank higher on almost every professionalisation indicator (i.e. formal education, attitude toward research, internal status, wage level, autonomy), support the hypothesis about profession-driven privatisation.

Avsikten med denna artikel är att diskutera relationen mellan privatisering och professionalisering i socialt arbete. Inom det sociala området betraktas privatisering oftast som en politiskt planerad (policydriven) process enligt en marknadsorienterad strategi för välfärdsstaten. Det finns dock åtskilliga skäl att anta att vi kan iaktta en spontan privatisering (ibland behovsdriven), där professionella startar privata verksamheter och erbjuder olika typer av service till de lokala myndigheterna. Syftet med denna artikel är att utforska omfattningen, inriktningen och konsekvenserna av sådan professionsdriven privatisering och att diskutera privatisering som en strategi för professionalisering.

Artikeln undersöker: (1) attityder till privatisering i allmänhet och till privata verksamheter i socialt arbete i synnerhet bland socionomer och socionomstudenter; (2) omfattningen av och inriktningen på verksamheter som bedrivs i privat regi; (3) motiven till att välja respektive inte välja att arbeta i privat regi; (4) skillnaderna i professionaliseringsgrad mellan offentligt anställda och privatpraktiserande socionomer.

Materialet baseras på en enkätundersökning till 1 000 svenska socionomer och 801 socionomstudenter. Resultaten visar på en ambivalens bland de professionella i förhållande till privatisering. I artikeln diskuteras orsakerna till denna ambivalens på såväl individuell som kollektiv nivå. Trots att andelen socionomer som bedriver privat verksamhet är låg, mellan 6 och 8%, förväntar sig cirka var tredje socionom att de kommer att arbeta privat inom 10 år. Förhållandena för de privata socionomerna, som har högre värden på i princip varje professionaliseringsindikator (t.ex. vidareutbildning, attityder till forskning, intern status, lönenivå, autonomi) stödjer hypotesen om professionsdriven privatisering.

Keywords:

• Social Work
• Privatisation
• Professionalisation
• Attitudes
• Self-employment
• socialt arbete
• privatisering
• professionalisering
• attityder
• egenföretagande

Notes

The research project ‘Privatisation in the service of professionalisation?’ was financed by CEFOS (Centrum för forskning om offentlig sector—Centre for Public Sector Research) at Göteborg University. In addition to the surveys presented in this article, we interviewed around 60 social workers in private practice and a number of managers of local welfare agencies.

More information about the methodology can be found in Dellgran and Höjer (2003a).

Svallfors (1996) claims, however, that the differences between men and women are minimal, and that they were decreasing in Sweden during the 1990s.

We have also included the Green Party (miljöpartiet) in the left wing. The current Social Democratic government is supported by the Left and Green parties.

The status variable needs further explanation. Status level is a measure of social workers’ opinions on a five-point scale where they were asked to assess the status of various areas of social work. Six (of 24) areas ranked highest: individual and family therapy, education and research, child psychiatry, adult psychiatry, family law, and personal administration. Lower status is accorded six other areas: social work with the elderly, handicapped, alcohol and drug treatment at welfare offices and institutions, probational social work, and work with unemployment and social assistance.

Despite the fact that the development of social work in Sweden (as well as other countries) has been discussed in terms of the need for and problems with professionalisation, empirical research about its consequences for social workers, clients and the society has been rather limited. Even in terms of whether social work is more professional today following achievements in research, advanced education etc., we have to admit that we really do not know. While we may assume with good reason that it is, it still remains an unresolved empirical question.

Not surprisingly, most work with therapy, family law and counselling, followed by education, research and social work within the health sector. Furthermore, there are certain variations within the latter field: higher education in therapy is much more frequent among social workers employed in mental healthcare. Therapy training is clearly less common in social assistance or probational social work.

For many years the union of social workers encouraged the state to introduce some form of certification for social workers. The state declined, however, due to the fact that social work does not have the same clear professional boundaries of liability as medical doctors and nurses, for instance. Delegation rules for social workers are set by local politicians, with little leeway for social workers professional discretion and ethical codes. When the attempts to introduce certification failed, the union offered its own authorisation system in 1998. The requirements to be an authorised social worker are a social work degree (BSW), at least three years of social work experience, supervision for two years (at least 100 hours), two separate evaluations of the applicant's suitability from a management representative, supervisor and/or colleague. In addition, the social worker must commit to the above-mentioned ethical code. Of course, authorisation and certification are not totally compatible. A certification system would have entailed a set of rules on the consequences of infractions and defined the relationship between the state, the public and the profession.

The impression from these specific indicators is that we are dealing with an unbalanced professionalisation in social work, and not only on the self-employment/public employment axis. Putting this aside, two fields—education/research and therapy/family counselling (and, to a lesser extent, some segments of social work in the healthcare sector)—stand out as more professionalised. A higher degree of advanced education and orientation toward research and scientific knowledge is accompanied by higher internal status and income as well as satisfaction with autonomy and other working conditions. At the other end we find social work involving social assistance and unemployment, criminal offenders and drug abusers. In between these polarised extremes are fields such as child welfare and school social work that rank well in some respects but show more limited professionalisation in others (Dellgran & Höjer, 2003b).