What could explain the dramatic rise in out-of-home placement in Finland in the 1990s and early 2000s?

Heikki Hiilamo

Children and Youth Services Review, 2009, vol. 31, issue 2, 177-184

Abstract: Objectives Despite exceptionally favourable economic conditions and school children's outstanding educational attainment the number of children placed outside their home in Finland has increased rapidly in the 1990s and early 2000s. This study identifies factors that are related to a child's risk of placement outside the home in Finland and tries to explore possible explanations for an increase in the share of children placed outside the home.Methods A regression analysis was applied to study the share of children placed outside the home and suggested risk factor indicators on sub-regional level. The use of sub-regional data from SOTKAnet indicator bank allowed us to test indicators for seven areas, namely family structure (single parenthood), receipt of social assistance, unemployment, parents' alcohol and substance abuse, parents' mental health, domestic violence and abortion. Educational level, number of social workers and domestic migration were included as background factors.Results Child placement outside home in Finland is most clearly associated with long-term economic hardships. However, the results indicate that the rate of change in the share of children placed outside the home is associated with alcohol and substance abuse.Conclusions The results suggest that the Finnish success story as a world leader in children's issues has a darker side. A change in the distribution of welfare in Finland seems to place the children in the margin of the society into a more disadvantaged position.

Keywords: Child; placement; outside; the; home (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190-7409(08)00178-3
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:cysrev:v:31:y:2009:i:2:p:177-184

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().