Workforce Disparities in Child Welfare: Regional Predictors of Turnover Intention in Pennsylvania

Background and Purpose

High turnover among child welfare caseworkers continues undermining service delivery and staff well-being, particularly in under-resourced regions. While existing studies have focused on broad organizational factors, few explore how regional differences shape workers’ intent to leave. This study, funded by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, examines geographic disparities in job satisfaction and turnover intent among public child welfare caseworkers, comparing predictors across rural and urban counties. Findings offer region-specific insights to inform workforce development and retention strategies.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with child welfare caseworkers across all 67 counties in Pennsylvania. A final analytic sample of 319 non-supervisory respondents was included in the analysis. The survey included validated measures of intent to leave (Auerbach et al., 2014) and job satisfaction across multiple domains (e.g., workload, supervisory support, flexibility, compensation, and access to professional development resources). Descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and stratified models by rural vs. urban settings were used to identify predictors of turnover intention. Correlational comparisons between groups were analyzed using Fisher’s r-to-z transformation.

Results

More than half of rural caseworkers (55%) and 45% of urban caseworkers reported seriously considering leaving their agency within the past year. In the full sample, lower satisfaction with workload (OR = 0.42, p = 0.007) and limited access to professional development resources (OR = 0.26, p < 0.001) significantly predicted higher turnover intention. When stratified by location, workload satisfaction was a significant predictor only among urban caseworkers (OR = 0.31, p = 0.032), while access to resources was significant only among rural caseworkers (OR = 0.27, p = 0.001). Correlational analyses also showed that flexibility and benefits satisfaction were more strongly associated with turnover intention in rural areas.

Conclusions and Implications

These findings emphasize the importance of regionally tailored workforce strategies to address child welfare caseworker turnover. In rural areas, where geographic isolation and limited agency capacity often constrain professional development, enhancing access to resources such as training, supervision, and advancement opportunities may be particularly effective in promoting retention. By contrast, urban caseworkers appear more affected by workload intensity and administrative burden, suggesting that reducing caseloads, improving documentation efficiency, and supporting work-life balance could yield a greater impact in those settings. The contrast in significant predictors between rural and urban groups demonstrates that uniform, system-wide solutions may fail to address workers' distinct challenges in different environments. County agencies often face chronic staffing shortages, especially in public sector settings. Our results offer actionable insights to guide policy and funding decisions, such as targeting professional support interventions in rural regions while prioritizing workload management strategies in urban centers. These implications are grounded in data and have been shared with key stakeholders across Pennsylvania, including public administrators and legislative bodies, to inform the development of more equitable and sustainable workforce infrastructure.