Norwegian version

Child Welfare in Norway 1990-2011

A register data study of Norwegian child welfare clients.

The researchers mainly focused on the clients' outcomes as adults concerning education, income, social benefits and employment. They also looked at the duration of different child welfare careers. 

The study population consisted of all child welfare clients in Norway between 1990 and 2005. This constituted a total of 120,986 former and present clients from 0 to 37 years of age. The data used is register data from Statistics Norway, and the design is longitudinal. The data file also consisted of a comparison sample of 112,412 children and young adults who had not been in contact with the Child Welfare authorities. 

The main conclusion from the project is that prior child welfare clients have more inferior living conditions than their peers from the general population. This is based on the following 5 indicators: education, income, social benefits, employment and health.