Sacker, A; Lacey, R; Maughan, B; Murray, E
(2024)
Is foster caring associated with an earlier transition to adulthood for caregivers' own children? ONS Longitudinal Study.
ADOPTION AND FOSTERING, 48 (2).
pp. 184-202.
ISSN 0308-5759
https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231216069
SGUL Authors: Lacey, Rebecca Emily
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Abstract
This study investigates whether existing children in a fostering household differ from young people in non-caregiving households in the timing of their transitions to key adult roles, known to affect later health and life chances. Using data from the ONS Longitudinal Study, we pooled records from census years 1971–2001 and linked them to follow-up records from 1981–2011. We identified 2,656 children living with a foster child and compared their profiles on the ‘big five’ transitions to roles of adulthood – finishing school, leaving home, finding work and becoming financially independent, getting married and having children – with those of other children without a foster child in the household (N = 209,453). We fitted logistic and multinomial models that controlled for childhood socioeconomic and demographic confounders to estimate the proportion achieving the five roles in early adulthood. When compared to those without a foster child in the household, a modest but reliably higher proportion of caregivers’ children achieved the transition to adulthood. There was some evidence that caregivers’ children might cope better with the transition to adulthood if they were older than the foster child or were female. The findings suggest that supporting foster parents with delaying their children’s transition to adulthood could become part of the role of supervising social workers.
Item Type: | Article | |||||||||
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Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0) This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). | |||||||||
Keywords: | Fostering, caregivers' children, life course, transition, young adult, 1607 Social Work, 1701 Psychology | |||||||||
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: | Academic Structure > Population Health Research Institute (INPH) | |||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | ADOPTION AND FOSTERING | |||||||||
ISSN: | 0308-5759 | |||||||||
Publisher License: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | |||||||||
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Web of Science ID: | WOS:001290586300001 | |||||||||
URI: | https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/116785 | |||||||||
Publisher's version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/03085759231216069 |
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