In the Norwegian child welfare system, children who experience the most 'stable' long-term residential care have the worst school-to-work transitions as adults.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Clusters of Out-of-Home Care Trajectories and Precarious School-to-Work Transitions: A Norwegian National Register Study
SSRN · 6499366
The Takeaway
Policy experts usually assume that stability (staying in the same placement) is the gold standard for child welfare. By tracking 25 years of register data, researchers found that those in the most consistent residential care clusters fared significantly worse than peers with more 'unstable' or varied foster care trajectories.
From the abstract
Background: Trajectories through child protection services involving out-of-home care (OHC) are highly diverse, yet studies of OHC and adult school-to-work transitions often overlook this heterogeneity. <div> Methods: Using monthly records of OHC measures from ages 0 to 25 for three complete birth cohorts (1994-1996) born in Norway (N = 172 638), we identify five trajectory clusters based on placement timing, duration, and type of OHC. We then examine how cluster membership, together with care i