Permanency and the Educational and Economic Attainment of Former Foster Children in Early Adulthood.

ABSTRACT: Foster children are at disproportionate risk of adverse outcomes throughout the life course. Public policy prioritizes permanency (exiting foster care through reunification with birth parents, adoption, or legal guardianship) as means of promoting healthy development and wellbeing for foster youth, but little empirical evidence indicates that permanency, including its most preferred form-reunification-promotes positive outcomes. Using multi-system, statewide longitudinal administrative data, we employed logistic and mixed-effects regression to examine educational attainment and earnings among former foster youth in early adulthood. We included a variety of sociodemographic and economic controls to reduce selection bias. We found that youth who did not attain permanency (those who aged out

SUBMITTER: Berger L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7286604 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature