Social service managers with healthcare education background

Abstract

The current study aimed to explore the unique characteristics of Hungarian social service managers with health care education backgrounds. Our knowledge about the basic professional parameters of social institution managers in Hungary is incomplete, and this lack of information characterizes the entire workforce in the sector. Therefore, our results reflect the practical knowledge about the profession according to the distribution of the social management staff by professional qualifications, with a particular focus on its exceptional heterogeneity and on the significant proportion of healthcare-related degrees. A total of 547 social service managers in Hungary completed our questionnaire. The results revealed that more than a fifth of the respondents has a higher education or university degree in healthcare -mainly a nurse bachelor's degree. The results also depict that women are overrepresented in the sample (90%), as well as that their average age and years spent at work are significantly higher compared to professionals without a healthcare education background.
Additionally, social service managers with healthcare backgrounds are overrepresented in residential long-term care facilities- especially in elderly homes, where 64.8% hold the position of head of the institution. The above-mentioned respondents account for 30.2% of the social care services in the sample. Thus, the results and conclusion of this study could raise several questions in the field of social and healthcare and support future social and health policy proposals to lessen redundancies and support more effective bridging between the two care types. In the present study, we intended to explore the individual characteristics of this unique group that could support further social and health policy analyses. Furthermore, it would also be worth broadening the examination's aspects of the educational background of the social service managers in the light of the COVID 19 pandemic and reflecting on the accumulated experiences so far.