How Social Workers be Alienated?Role Stress, Professional Efficacy, and State-Profession Relations

Background: The Chinese government is investing more resources to develop the social work profession. More local governments have widely introduced social workers as their agents in residential community governance, through contract and purchasing services. However, contrary to new development opportunities, community social workers are gradually losing control of their work, feeling meaningless and powerless, and gradually becoming self-isolated from their work and organization, which means they are in a state of work alienation. This article predicts that role stress is the main cause of work alienation, mediated by professional efficacy. Meanwhile, this article combined these issues with the political background of Chinese social work and consider the relationship between social work organizations and the state (government and political parties) may impact the role stress-work alienation framework.

Methods: This study used the community social workers’ sample (N=977) from the China Social Work Longitudinal Study (CSWLS). A structural equation was used to examine the direct and indirect relationship between Role stress (Role Ambiguity, RA& Role conflict, RC), Work Alienation (WA), and Professional Efficacy (PE), as well as the mediating effect of PE. Finally, further examine the moderating effect of Government Support and Party Building, as the representative of state-profession relations.

Results: The theoretical structural equation model shows good convergent validity and discriminant validity and fits well (χ²/df =3.341, GFI = 0.942; CFI = 0.962; TLI rho 2 = 0.955; RMSEA = 0.049). RC and RA have been confirmed to have significant positive correlations with WA (β_RC = 0.18***, β_RA = 0.42***) and negatively correlated to PE (β_RC = -0.18***, β_RA = -0.31***). Also, there is a significant negative relation between PE and WA (β_pe = -0.36***) which indicates that PE played a partial mediating role. The moderating effects show that the contribution of RC to WA is only significant in the higher level of government support groups (β_high =0.185*** VS β_low =0.006). At the same time, in this group, the negative influence of PE on WA (β_high =0.-157*** VS β_low =- 0.243***) is weaker. However, a higher level of party building strengthens the negative impact of PE on WA (β_high =0. -0.239*** VS β_low =-0.149***).

Discussions: Research has found that role ambiguity and conflict can lead to work alienation among community social workers, but workers may partially offset it through professional efficacy to avoid work alienation. While the government provides resource support for community workers, it also puts forward more complex and even contradictory work requirements, strengthening the role stress, and leading to work alienation. Although party building has not reduced role stress, it may enhance social workers’ perception of work efficacy by combing social workers' complex and trivial work content with positive discourse like “social contribution” and “serving the people”, to avoid work alienation. These results remind the profession to reflect that excessive reliance on the state may harm the future of the profession and its practitioners, and make the profession lose its social value.