Family foster care or residential care: the impact of home environment on children raised in state care

Anna Bárdits () and Gábor Kertesi ()
Additional contact information
Anna Bárdits: Central European University
Gábor Kertesi: ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies

Journal of Population Economics, 2025, vol. 38, issue 4, No 8, 34 pages

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates how family foster care, compared to residential care, affects the outcomes of adolescents raised in state care. Using Hungarian administrative panel data, we contribute to the literature by examining previously unmeasured adult outcomes, conditioning on a rich set of variables observed in childhood. We show that adolescents raised in a foster family have substantially better outcomes as adults. Compared to similar peers in residential care, they are more likely to complete secondary education and have lower probabilities of using mental health medication and spending extended periods without either working or studying. For girls, teenage childbirth and abortion are less likely. Oster bounds indicate that selection on unobservables would need to be implausibly strong to explain away the estimated effects. Further evidence suggests that local child protection systems with more-abundant foster parents lead to better outcomes for children raised in state care.

Keywords: State care; Foster care; Residential care; Institutional care; Child protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00148-025-01129-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:38:y:2025:i:4:d:10.1007_s00148-025-01129-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s00148-025-01129-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().