Abstract
Inequality of income and wealth has been increasing globally over the last two decades and is
now described as one of the most pressing challenges of our time. This trend is also evident in
Norway, where income inequality and the number of children growing up in persistent poverty
are increasing. Increasing inequality tends to affect the most vulnerable groups in society the
most. One of the most vulnerable groups in Norwegian society is young people in or with
experience from child welfare services. This thesis does not set out to evaluate the efficiency of
current practices in Norwegian child welfare services, with the exception of paper 4, as we do
not have the basis for such an evaluation. However, it aims to describe current practices in a
way that is useful for developing current practices and policies in line with existing political
goals.
This thesis aims to understand how socio-spatial inequality occurs among young people in or
with experience from child welfare services in Norway. It starts with a broad approach exploring
all ages and then narrows the focus to older young people with experience from child welfare
services using quantitative methods, focusing on three main research questions:
1. What is the geographical variation in service provision for young people with
experience from child welfare services?
2. Is a temporal theory perspective needed to understand the transitional challenges
young people with a child welfare background face in their transition to adulthood?
3. Do official welfare policies and research-informed policy recommendations align with
the distributions of child welfare services?
To achieve these goals, the first three papers utilize quantitative analyses based on longitudinal
cohort data from the complete 1995 and 2005 cohorts in Norway. The fourth paper employs an
event-study using Microdata, which is a service available to all researchers affiliated with a
Norwegian research institute that provides individual-level administrative data on the whole
population in Norway. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part is an introduction to the
empirical context and spatial inequality, including the research design for the thesis and overall
contributions and conclusions. The second part consists of four research articles that investigate
different aspects of spatial inequality in Norwegian child welfare services either implicitly or
explicitly.
Paper summaries
1. The first paper explores how spatial and temporal perspectives can enhance our
understanding of inequalities in service distribution in child welfare services for all age
categories, using logistic regression analysis and hotspot analysis. Findings from this
paper show that the unexplained variance reduces by including spatial and temporal
factors, thus emphasizing the need to consider these approaches to understand where
and how patterns of inequality take place in child welfare services.
2. The second paper is concerned with the distribution of child welfare service measures
for young people older than 18 years old, called aftercare measures. Aftercare has in
previous research been associated with positive outcomes later in life, and to understand
the distribution and uncover patterns of inequality in the distribution of such services is
therefore of interest. Logistic regression analysis for the 1995 cohort is conducted in
this paper. Findings from this paper indicate unequal geographical distribution of
aftercare services along the lines of available resources in the municipality and the level
of urbanization.
3. In the third paper, we explore upper secondary completion rates for general and
vocational education, utilizing logistic regression analysis. We are especially concerned
with how the geographical context influences educational outcomes for young people
with experience from child welfare services. In this paper, we find that young people
living in areas with fewer resources have lower chances of completing upper secondary
education. The most consistent finding of this paper is the differences related to urbanrural
differences.
4. The final paper explores the effect of different incentives implemented in Trøndelag
county to prepare the municipalities for the new child welfare services reform that
increased the municipalities’ responsibility for out-of-home care, where one aim was to
reduce placement instability for this group. In this paper, an event-study design with
difference-in-difference estimates was used to study the effect of the measures. Our
findings indicate that increased support to foster homes significantly reduced the
number of moves.
The overall contribution of the thesis is the evidence supporting the importance of a broader
approach to research in child welfare services, including both geographical and longitudinal
dimensions. Findings from this thesis emphasize how spatial perspectives enhance our understanding of how inequality takes place and is reproduced over place and time. The level
of urbanization appears to be a significantly strong marker of inequality, especially in the
provision of services.