Where Are All the Black Male Social Workers?

By Kahlil Haywood

Many moons ago, I wrote about my time working in social services. I spent seven years in the field utilizing my Bachelor's degree in psychology. My role spanned from working in homeless prevention in New York City to the behavioral health field. Throughout all of my roles, I noticed one constant. Women grossly outnumbered men in the social work field.

This disparity takes me back to undergrad and the classes that I took as a psychology major. I should have minored in sociology with the number of classes that I took on the subject. Many times I would find myself looking around the classroom in awe of the demographics. I was one of a small handful of men in the class. As a Black man, the numbers dipped even further. Seeing this manifest on a grander stage in the "real world" made sense.

What I gathered on my own was that women tend to gravitate more towards jobs in the social sciences field. Men tend to lean more into the worlds of business and technology. But what do the numbers say, and why aren't Black men more involved in social services?

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Kahlil Haywood is a writer, editor, and content creator from Brooklyn, NY. Kahlil’s content chronicles the experiences of a millennial, Afro Latino man. His work discusses politics, dating, and contemporary culture.