Social work, emotion management and the transformation of the welfare state

Jussi Turtiainen,Erkko Anttila,Ari Väänänen

doi:10.1177/1468017320973586

Jussi Turtiainen, Erkko Anttila + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017320973586

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Abstract

SummaryDrawing from the sociological and organizational scholarship of emotion management in human service work, our historical analysis elaborates on how external pressures and efficiency requirements jeopardize employees’ ability to carry out emotional labour in the public sector. Building on the Finnish social workers’ accounts published in a professional trade paper in 1975–2009, the article provides an insight into the emotional challenges and dissonances of interactive work.FindingsThe article suggests that social workers’ emotional job requirements are deeply embedded in and influenced by the broader social context and changes in the welfare state. The article indicates how workers’ emotion management underwent changes and readjustments from the heyday of the expansive welfare state of the mid-1970s, through the severe economic recession of the 1990s, and was bound by the ideological reform of the Finnish welfare policy in the 1990s and 2000s.ApplicationsHistorical prospect to emotion management shows social workers, social work students and the academic community how employees’ emotion management has been gradually recognized as a crucial element of relational client work over the decades, but also how workers’ emotional job requirements and demeanours are intertwined with broader societal changes. Second, emotion management research provides a solid framework to elaborate emotional and ethical dissonances which are embedded in social work more profoundly.

Highlights

In current working life, emotional labour is highly prevalent in human service work
Several female-dominated occupations in the public sector, such as social workers, nurses, teachers and psychologists are often characterized by demanding emotional interactions which require emotional skills to handle the challenges arising in their labour processes
A recent study shows that the risk of disability or early retirement due to mental diagnoses amongst social workers is twice that amongst psychologists, special education teachers and kindergarten teachers in Sweden and Finland (Rantonen et al, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Emotional labour is highly prevalent in human service work. More than 30% of European employees frequently engage in emotional labour in their work (Eurofound, 2016). Several female-dominated occupations in the public sector, such as social workers, nurses, teachers and psychologists are often characterized by demanding emotional interactions which require emotional skills to handle the challenges arising in their labour processes. Numerous studies have acknowledged that social workers suffer from occupational distress and are more vulnerable to emotional exhaustion and depression (Blomberg et al, 2015; M€antt€ari-van der Kuip, 2015; Travis et al, 2016). Sociological analyses have provided important insights into the characteristics and nature of emotional labour in human service professions in general (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Grandey et al, 2013; James, 1992; Mann, 2004), as well as into how social workers experience and cope with emotional labour (Gorman, 2000; Gray, 2012; Moesby-Jensen & Nielsen, 2015)

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