Modeling the Occupational Well-Being of Finnish Social Work Employees: A Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Survey data on work-related distress and well-being was used to explore the structure of the occupational well-being of Finnish social workers (N = 1220) with a focus on child protection workers using the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis method. A multidimensional model defines occupational well-being theoretically and this was empirically validated with the four dimensions of affective, social, psychosomatic, and cognitive/professional well-being. The findings imply that the occupational well-being of the three groups of social workers, child protection social workers, and social instructors can be explained with the same factor structure. Child protection social workers showed the lowest affective and psychosomatic well-being.