Trained in Germany, Petkova returned to Bulgaria in the early 1930s and helped establish institutions to provide for the social welfare.
Publishing widely, her work was influential in defining the role of the state in protecting its citizens and her methods for collecting and analyzing data, particularly on youth, homelessness and crime were not only innovative for the time, but for many years served as the standard for researchers who followed.
Rayna Petkova was born on 10 September 1895 in Tarnovo, in the Principality of Bulgaria of the Ottoman Empire to the master craftsman and painter, Minchev Petko.
Petkova persisted in pursuing her training and after completing her grammar school education, she attended the Girls' Gymnasium in Pleven.
Ivanova put Petkova in touch with members of the German women's movement, who helped assist her with fee reductions to enter the Salomon Academy for Social and Pedagogical Work in Berlin.
She took a wide variety of courses including study of social health, maternity and childhood, pedagogy, psychology, welfare institutions and youth programs.
Against the criminalization of prostitution, she instead advocated that pandering and pimping should be illegal but the business transaction should only be regulated to ensure that women were protected from injury and exploitation.