Parents whose children enter out-of-home care often face substantial social and economic disadvantage, including unstable employment, low income and long-term exclusion from the labour market. A new Swedish cohort study examines how parents’ labour market attachment develops before and after a child’s placement in out-of-home care, and whether these patterns differ depending on whether the family is reunified.
Family reunification is a central goal of the Swedish child welfare system when a child has been placed in out-of-home care. However, parents whose children enter care frequently experience socioeconomic difficulties that may persist before, during and after placement. Despite this, little research has examined how family reunification relates to parents’ longer-term position in the labour market.
The study used data from the population-based Swedish Families of the 1990s (SWIFT90) cohort. The analyses included 11,907 parent–child observations and examined parents’ labour market attachment during the three years before and three years after the child’s first out-of-home care placement. Parents were classified as belonging to the core workforce, being students, having an insecure attachment to the workforce, or being outside employment, education or training (NEET).
The findings showed substantial stability in parents’ labour market positions over time. Around 62% of parents were classified as NEET before their child’s placement, and more than three-quarters of those remained NEET afterwards. Parents who were already part of the core workforce showed similarly strong continuity, with almost 80% remaining in that category. Overall, 81.9% of the parents were reunified with their child within three years of placement.
Parents who were not reunified with their children had the most vulnerable labour market attachment. After accounting for parental, child and placement characteristics, non-reunified parents were more likely to be NEET rather than part of the core workforce compared with parents who were reunified. The findings highlight that many parents whose children enter out-of-home care experience persistent socioeconomic marginalisation and suggest that child welfare services may benefit from incorporating employment and socioeconomic support for parents alongside services aimed at children.
Read more: https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.70262