Professional role functions of women in social service: results of a sociological survey in Moscow

Introduction. Women predominate among the employees in the social service sector, they occupy various positions and perform relevant functions, but the specifics and problems of their work have not been sufficiently studied. Based on the materials of the conducted sociological survey, the article analyzes how social workers perform the main work tasks, how well they manage to combine professional role functions with family ones, which contributes to their satisfaction with their work. Materials and Methods. The applied research, conducted by the author in the autumn of 2020 in Moscow, used official documents, statistical data, her own sociological survey, and a comparative analysis of the results of secondary empirical studies. 107 employees of state social service organizations took part in the survey, almost equally representing the management staff, specialists, and ordinary employees. This made it possible not only to generalize various status and gender positions regarding the role of women in the implementation of social service in the relevant institutions, but also, based on the results of the analysis, to suggest possible ways to improve the professional qualifications of female employees for more effective implementation of their work functions. Results. A comparison of the responses of representatives of different status and gender groups showed that the range of professional functions of the object of this research is quite wide: from the head to the service personnel, from working with documents to providing specific social services to various groups of people in need or in a difficult life situation. At all the levels, women are represented in accordance with their professional and personal qualities. However, according to the self-assessment, combining professional and family responsibilities is most difficult for a female senior or middle-level manager. Discussion and Conclusion. The author proposes to create conditions for optimizing the workload, for preventing physical fatigue and emotional burnout of women providing social services, as well as for effective combining their professional roles with family ones, and for professional development. The article will be useful to employees providing social services, those who specialize in the field of gender issues of employment, senior personnel of the social protection system of the population at the regional level, teachers engaged in further vocational education.