Who We are, Where We Come from, And Some of Our Perceptions: Comparison of Social Workers and the General Population‪.‬

As Gibelman and Schervish (1997) noted in their overview of the social work profession: "We still know very little about the larger population of social workers in the United States" (p. 15). Although a certain amount of information is known about individuals who are members of NASW, this 151,000-member organization only constitutes roughly 32 percent of the of the 484,000 individuals classified as social workers by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 1994. Apart from the limited statistics collected by BLS, essentially nothing is known about the 68 percent of social workers who are unaffiliated with NASW (Gibelman & Schervish). In addition, dissimilarity in degree status suggests that important differences may exist between the NASW membership and the total social work labor force. Although more than 85 percent of NASW membership consists of individuals whose highest degree is the master's, most social workers hold bachelor's degrees. According to the BLS study of the total social work labor force, 289,000 people held bachelor's degrees, whereas 175,000 held master's degrees (Gibelman & Schervish, 1997). Because most social workers hold bachelor's degrees and most NASW members hold master's degrees, significant differences may exist between the two groups.