Poverty and decision-making in child welfare and protection: deepening the bias-need debate

This abstract is submitted as part of a symposium entitled ‘Beyond poverty: inequity in child welfare’, led by Paul Bywaters and Brid Featherstone The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on... [ view full abstract ]

This abstract is submitted as part of a symposium entitled ‘Beyond poverty: inequity in child welfare’, led by Paul Bywaters and Brid Featherstone

The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This presentation reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic regression models (N=33,423) we examined which specific socio-economic risk factors – measured at the level of the household of the child – in the total population of children enhances the risk of CWP interventions. The results reveal that all included socio-economic variables, except one, show an increased risk of CWP interventions. Our results, however, also indicate that a rather dominant social, cultural and historically rooted construction of middle-class family life seems to be an important ground for interventions. Based on these findings, it is argued that the current debate on bias in CWP decision-making should be broadened from a mere focus on socio-economic factors, to the question of how CWP decision-making might reinforce social inequalities affecting children and families who come to the attention of CWP services.