Expected to Work for Free: Social Work's Complicity in its Own Devaluation

Abstract

By reviewing the historical gender, race, and class-based devaluation of community and social service work, this in-brief article reveals how the profession of social work continues to contribute to this devaluation through expectations for unremunerated work. The profession communicates these expectations through the Code of Ethics, unpaid student field placements, and managerialist workplace stratification. Social work professional, educational, and employing organizations have a responsibility to demonstrate the value of social service workers and the communities they serve by eliminating expectations for unpaid labor, encouraging staff to track and report unpaid hours, and supporting the organizing efforts of the social service workforce.