Working Paper: NBER ID: w29922
Authors: E. Jason Baron; Max Gross
Abstract: Foster care placement is strongly associated with crime—for example, close to one fifth of the prison population in the United States is comprised of former foster children—yet there is little evidence on whether this relationship is causal. Leveraging the quasi-random assignment of child welfare investigators and administrative data from Michigan, we show that foster care placement substantially reduced the chances of adult arrests, convictions, and incarceration for children at the margin. Exploring mechanisms, we find that foster care also improved a range of children's safety, academic, and behavioral intermediate outcomes. A likely reason for children's improvements is that their birth parents made positive changes, as most children in our setting reunified with their parents after a short stay in foster care. In light of recent historic federal policy which prioritizes keeping children with their families, our analysis indicates that safely reducing foster care caseloads will require improving efforts to ensure child wellbeing in the home.
Keywords: foster care; crime; child welfare; policy; quasi-experimental
JEL Codes: H75; I38; J13; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Foster care placement (I38) | Reduced likelihood of adult arrests (J13) |
| Foster care placement (I38) | Reduced likelihood of adult convictions (J79) |
| Foster care placement (I38) | Reduced likelihood of adult incarceration (J13) |
| Foster care placement (I38) | Improvements in children's safety (J13) |
| Improvements in children's safety (J13) | Reduced likelihood of adult arrests (J13) |
| Foster care placement (I38) | Improvements in academic performance (D29) |
| Improvements in academic performance (D29) | Reduced likelihood of adult arrests (J13) |
| Foster care placement (I38) | Improvements in behavioral outcomes (D91) |
| Improvements in behavioral outcomes (D91) | Reduced likelihood of adult arrests (J13) |