The Effect of Social Workers’ Gender Consciousness on Their Attitudes towards Assessing Single Fathers’ and Mothers’ Needs

• Main Authors: Garrett Ren-Jie Liu, 劉仁傑
• Other Authors: Li-Chen Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/21461911257239547005

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 社會工作學研究所 === 102 === The western countries and Taiwan are facing a transformation of family structure from the traditional into alternative family forms, and the percentage of single-parent family has increased rapidly in past decades. Compared to other western countries, single-parent families in Taiwan show their distinguishing characteristic. In Taiwan, there are more than 40% of single parents are male, unlike in Europe and the United States, the proportion of male single parents is less than 20 percent. Moreover, there are many domestic literature indicated that the issue and services of single-parent families have been feminized in Taiwan. Additionally, foreign researches indicated that: when a problem is treated as a male or female issue at the time, social workers will be expected to do their assessment with gender bias. What I worried about is that many empirical studies have continued to demonstrate an impact of gender factor on the single-parent family services but the emphasis on this issue is so poor in Taiwan. Therefore, the propose of this study aimed to examine the effect of social workers’ gender consciousness on their attitudes towards assessing single fathers’ and mothers’ needs, and expected to lead domestic academic research, professional education and social work practitioners focus on gender issues in single-parent families services. In this study, mailed questionnaires survey method was mainly applied, purposively sampled 486 social workers and supervisors, who worked at an organization or service center serving for families, in the five municipalities (Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung City). 275 questionnaires were returned (56.6%), of which 257 valid questionnaires, the effective rate was 93.5%. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) Social workers’ attitudes towards assessing single fathers’ needs are distinguishing from single mothers’ needs, and social workers generally believe that the level of social welfare needs of female single parents is higher than male single parents. (2) Social workers’ gender consciousness inclined to support gender equality. Gender role identity of "typed" of social workers occupied the highest proportion. (3) Social workers’ different sex, marital status, regular clients, organizational characteristics, workplaces, and the experience of reading books of gender issues have significant correlation in the gender consciousness of social workers. (4) Social workers’ numbers of children, age, and the experience of reading books of gender issues have significant correlation in the gender role identity. (5) Social workers’ had different attitudes towards assessing single fathers’ and mothers’ needs, and their birth-year, academic background, and workplaces have related; and considers gender differences in the needs of employment services, social workers’ have more traditional gender consciousness. (6) Social workers’ gender role identity is more likely undifferentiated, more inclined to think there’s no difference of needs between single fathers and mothers. (7) Social workers, who were younger, worked at single-parent family service centers, had “typed” or “androgynous” gender role identity, had greater odds to assess single fathers’ needs distinguishing from single mothers’ needs. (8) Social workers, who were women, were younger, had more traditional gender consciousness, and had “androgynous” gender role identity, had greater odds to assess single fathers’ needs of employment services distinguishing from single mothers’ needs. Based on these findings, suggestions for practitioners, educators, and policy makers were made to offer better services for single parents.