Inequities in Child Welfare: The Financial Challenges of Kinship Caregivers

Background and Purpose: Approximately 2.7 million children are in kinship care in which children who are separated from their parents due to maltreatment or other special circumstances are cared for by relatives. Prior research has found that children do better in kinship care compared to non-kin foster care with respect to behavioral and academic problems, placement stability, new maltreatment allegations, and juvenile justice involvement. Despite having low incomes on average, kinship caregivers receive less financial support and services through public agencies than non-kin foster caregivers which may elevate their risk for material hardship and financial problems, which are known risk factors for negative outcomes including maltreatment and academic difficulties. Thus, with the goal of mitigating these risks, this study aims to better understand the financial characteristics and challenges of informal kinship caregivers. This living arrangement is not supervised by the child welfare system, and it is often left out of inquiries due to difficulties to locate them.

Methods: This study utilized two data sources. First, data from a mixed-methods pilot study focused on African American informal kinship caregiver (N=12; children ages 5 to 12). The semi-structured qualitative interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the phenomenological methods suggested by Moustakas and Creswell. Second, data from the National Financial Capability Survey (NFCS) was also used in this study. Linear probability models with covariance control, population weights, and heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors were run to predict key indicators of financial well-being, comparing a NFCS sub-sample that resembled the demographic composition of kinship caregivers to the full nationally representative NFCS sample (N=27,564).

Results: Quantitative interviews revealed most caregivers (90%) almost always had enough food for two meals a day yet only 55% and 50% said they almost always had money to buy necessities and to pay monthly bills, respectively. Only 15% said they almost always had enough money to save. Qualitative interviews found key financial challenges included difficulties paying for recurring and irregular child-related expenses, paying only past due amounts on bills, putting off health care, and cutting back on "wants". With respect to coping responses, caregivers described difficulty navigating and receiving very little financial support from public assistance programs, and uncertainty regarding program eligibility based on their kinship caregiving status. Analyzing NFCS data, a sub-sample demographically-matched based on observed characteristics of kinship caregivers had predicted probabilities of ability to cover expenses and having adequate emergency savings that were 10 and 14 percentage points lower than the full, nationally representative NFCS sample.

Conclusions and Implications: Our findings paint a picture of financial difficulty among informal kinship caregivers that likely could be lessened if these caregivers received ongoing financial assistance and services on par with licensed foster care providers. Failure to do so is rooted in ideas that family members should care for one another using their own resources while ignoring the reality that kinship caregivers who are disproportionately African American and lower income, have low incomes and resources due to structural inequality and racial discrimination.