Examining Rural Welfare Practice: Differences and similarities in welfare practice between rural and urban setting

A substantial prescriptive literature on welfare practice in rural areas has been written over the years. This literature suggests rural practitioners are generalists, as they must utilise a number of roles in practice, that they must use and nurture informal helping networks, and that clientele of rural agencies exhibit numerous social problems. An empirical survey compares differences between urban and rural welfare workers on these dimensions. Data analysis compares differences between rural and urban welfare workers and between rural and urban qualified social workers. A number of statistically significant differences between rural and urban welfare workers were found. However, very few significant differences between rural and urban qualified social workers were uncovered.