Baseline Survey of China Social Work Longitudinal Study 2019: Design and Implementation

Abstract

Purpose: The China Social Work Longitudinal Study (CSWLS) aims to provide the first national longitudinal multilevel dataset that contains comprehensive domains to monitor the development of social work in China. This study presents the design and implementation of the baseline survey in 2019. Methods: The CSWLS includes three scholarly themes of professionalization, governmentality, and institutionalization, which are reflected in comprehensive questionnaires on social workers and social work agencies. The CSWLS is a longitudinal panel study that has multilevel datasets of social workers nested within agencies that are selected by a multistage sampling strategy. Results: The baseline survey collected 979 agency questionnaires and 5,965 social worker questionnaires in 56 cities, holding the validity rates of 98.59% and 99.92% respectively. The sample had certain national representativeness when comparing to existed national data in China. Conclusions: The CSWLS will become a critical tool for government officials, professional leaders, and academic researchers.