Urban-Rural Workforce Study in Pennsylvania Child Welfare

Using data from a statewide cross-sectional survey of Pennsylvania child welfare caseworkers, this study examined job demands, job resources, and intent to leave across rural and urban contexts. Guided by the Job Demands-Resources framework, analyses focused on caseloads, workload, service capacity, organizational resources, flexibility, court-related work, recognition, salary/benefits satisfaction, and turnover intention. A total of 712 caseworkers initiated the survey; rural/urban agency classification was available for 670 respondents. Rural and urban respondents did not differ significantly in caseload or intent to leave, but rural respondents reported higher satisfaction with flexibility and court-related work. In rural/urban correlation analyses, service capacity was negatively associated with intent to leave among rural caseworkers but not among urban caseworkers. Benefits satisfaction was negatively associated with intent to leave in both groups, with a stronger negative association among rural respondents. In the adjusted logistic regression model, workload satisfaction and organizational resources were negatively associated with having considered leaving, while public county employment was associated with higher odds of having considered leaving compared with private provider employment. Findings suggest both shared and context-specific workforce concerns: retention strategies should strengthen workload manageability and organizational resources across settings while attending to rural-specific concerns related to service capacity and benefits.