Social work’s diversity problem may be even worse than law enforcement’s. While minorities make up more than 27 percent of police departments nationwide, men make up barely 16 percent of the ranks of social workers, according to federal data. And a look at social-work education suggests that the trend continues in the wrong direction: According to the Council on Social Work Education, just 13.3 percent of the recipients of master’s degrees in social work in 2015 identified as male. In 1964, the figure was 42.1 percent.

So, ironically, a field that loudly proclaims its commitment to diversity and inclusiveness lags far behind one that is often thought to be insular, secretive, conservative and hidebound. Law enforcement is taking concrete, meaningful action to address its diversity problem. Social work is doing nothing of the sort.

The result is that the field of social work does a poor job of dealing with family issues in ways that take into account the needs of both men and women — and the children they parent. As a 2015 study of social-work practices in Connecticut reported, some fathers complained that “being male put them at a disadvantage and that case workers often took the side of the mother before initial contact with the father was made.” Nearly two decades ago, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson wrote that “the far greater crime rate among Afro-American men must in great part be explained by their unmarried and largely unpartnered existence.” In 2013, British researchers found that while “friends are equally important to men and women … family matters more for men’s well-being.”

http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/voices/col-social-work-gender-diversity-problem.html