Untangling child welfare inequalities and the ‘Inverse Intervention Law’ in England

Calum Webb and Kate Morris (The University of Sheffield, UK), Paul Bywaters (Huddersfield University, UK), Jonathan Scourfield (Cardiff University, UK) and Claire McCartan, Lisa Bunting and Gavin Davidson (Queen’s University Belfast, UK) published in Children and Youth Services Review Volume 111 (April 2020)

Highlights

• Multilevel models were used to reanalyse child welfare inequalities data.
• Robust quantitative evidence for the ‘inverse intervention law’ and social gradient.
• Evidence of an ‘income inequalities intervention law’ mirrors international research.
• Average 55-75 per cent increases in CWI for one SD increases in deprivation.
• Less equal/deprived LAs social gradients 5x stronger than more equal/deprived LAs.

Abstract

This article addresses some potential limitations of key findings from recent research into inequalities in children’s social services by providing additional evidence from multilevel models that suggest the socioeconomic social gradient and ‘Inverse Intervention Law’ in children’s services interventions are statistically significant after controlling for possible confounding spatial and population effects.

Multilevel negative binomial regression models are presented using English child welfare data to predict the following intervention rates at lower super output area-level: Child in Need (n = 2707, middle super output area [MSOA] n = 543, local authority [LA] n = 13); Child Protection Plan (n = 4115, MSOA n = 837, LA n = 18); and Children Looked After (n = 4115, MSOA n = 837, LA n = 18).

We find strong evidence supporting the existence of a steep socioeconomic social gradient in child welfare interventions.

Furthermore, we find certain local authority contexts exacerbate this social gradient. Contexts of low overall deprivation and high income inequality are associated with greater socioeconomic inequalities in neighbourhood intervention rates.

The relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and children looked after rates is almost five times stronger in local authorities with these characteristics than it is in local authorities with high overall deprivation and low income inequality.

We argue that social policy responses addressing structural determinants of child welfare inequalities are needed, and that strategies to reduce the numbers of children taken into care must address underlying poverty and income inequality at both a local and national level.

Labels:
social_work, child_protection, deprivation, income_inequality, children’s_social_care, England,

Depressing.

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