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Signe Hald Andersen, Christopher Wildeman, The Effect of Paternal Incarceration on Children's Risk of Foster Care Placement, Social Forces, Volume 93, Issue 1, September 2014, Pages 269–298, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sou027
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Abstract
Research on the relationship between parental incarceration and foster care placement is limited in three ways: it (1) it focuses solely on maternal imprisonment and provides neither (2) strong causal tests nor (3) tests of mediation. In this article, we address these gaps by providing a rationale for how paternal imprisonment may increase children's risk of foster care placement and by using Danish registry data to conduct a strong causal test of this relationship (using a recent policy change) and to test relevant mechanisms. The results provide compelling evidence of a causal effect of paternal imprisonment on children's risk of foster care placement in Denmark and imply that changes in family finances and family structure do little to explain these effects.