Affiliation:
1. Center for State Child Welfare Data, Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Abstract
Although the connections between race, poverty, and foster care placement seem obvious, the link has not in fact been studied extensively. To address this gap, we view poverty and placement through longitudinal and cross-sectional lenses to more accurately capture how changes in poverty rates relate to changes in placement frequency. The longitudinal study examines the relationship between poverty rate changes and changes in the placement of Black and White children between 2000 and 2015. The cross-sectional study extends the longitudinal analysis by using a richer measure of socio-ecological diversity and more recent foster care data. Using Poisson regression models, we assess the extent to which changes in race-differentiated child poverty rates are correlated with Black and White child placement frequencies and placement disparities. Regardless of whether one looks longitudinally or cross-sectionally, we find that Black children are placed in foster care more often than White children. Higher White child poverty rates are associated with substantially reduced placement differences; however, higher Black child poverty rates are associated with relatively small changes in placement disparity. Black and White child placement rates are more similar in counties with the fewest socio-ecological assets.
Funder
Chapin Hall’s Impact Fund
Subject
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Reference61 articles.
1. Mnookin, R., and Weisberg, D.K. (2005). Child, Family, State: Problems and Materials on Children and the Law, Aspen Publishers, Inc.
2. 2. UN General Assembly (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. United Nations Treaty Ser., 1577, 1–15.
3. Poverty, Social Disadvantage, and the Black/White Placement Gap;Wulczyn;Child. Youth Serv. Rev.,2013
4. On Causal Inference and the Limits of Disproportionality as a Construct: The Case of Foster Care Placement;Wulczyn;Soc. Serv. Rev.,2023
5. Analyzing the Relationship between Poverty and Child Maltreatment: Investigating the Relative Performance of Four Levels of Geographic Aggregation;Aron;Soc. Work Res.,2010