Child protective services (CPS) contact occurs at substantially higher rates among Black than White families. The present study considers systemic racism as a central driver of this disparity and emphasizes racialized poverty as a possible mechanism. We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and logistic regression analyses to assess the associations between income poverty, a racialized experience, and CPS contact, separately among Black and White families. Results indicated that income poverty was a significant predictor of CPS contact among White families, who were protected by higher income. In contrast, income per se was not a significant predictor of CPS contact among Black families, who were instead impacted by racialized family regulation and consequences of poverty, such as poor health and depression. Refundable state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) policies were protective for Black families, and more expansive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs decreased CPS contact for Black and White families. Implications include centering systemic racism and specifically racialized poverty as causes of racial inequities in CPS contact and rethinking the role of CPS in protecting children.
AganA. Y.StarrS. B. (2016). Ban the box, criminal records, and statiscal discrimination: A field experiment. University of Michigan Law School Law and Economics Research Paper, 16(12), 1–68. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2795795#.
2.
AlexanderM. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New Press.
3.
AndrewsR.CaseyM.HardyB. L.LoganT. D. (2017). Location matters: Historical racial segregation and intergenerational mobility. Economics Letters, 158, 67–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2017.06.018.
BergerL. M.CancianM.CuestaL.NoyesJ. L. (2016). Families at the intersection of the criminal justice and child protective services systems. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 665(1), 171–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716216633058
CollyerS.CurranM. A.HartleyR. P.ParolinZ.WimerC. (2021). The potential poverty Reduction Effect of the American families plan. Center on poverty and social policy. Columbia University.
10.
DaleM. K. (2014). Addressing the underlying issue of poverty in child neglect cases. American Bar Association.
11.
DerenoncourtE.MontialouxC. (2020). Minimum wages and racial inequality. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136(1), 169–228. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa031
12.
DettlaffA. J.RivauxS. L.BaumannD. J.FlukeJ. D.RycraftJ. R.JamesJ. (2011). Disentangling substantiation: The influence of race, income, and risk on the substantiation decision in child welfare. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(9), 1630–1637. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.04.005
13.
DettlaffA. J.WeberK.PendletonM.BoydR.BettencourtB.BurtonL. (2020). It is not a broken system, it is a system that needs to be broken: The up end movement to abolish the child welfare system. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 14(5), 500–517. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2020.1814542
DrakeB.JolleyJ. M.LanierP.FlukeJ.BarthR. P.Jonson-ReidM. (2011). Racial bias in child protection? A comparison of competing explanations using national data. Pediatrics, 127(3), 471–478. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-1710
16.
DrakeB.RankM. R. (2009). The racial divide among American children in poverty: Reassessing the importance of neighborhood. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(12), 1264–1271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2009.05.012
17.
FongK. (2019). Concealment and constraint: Child protective services fears and poor mothers’ institutional engagement. Social Forces, 97(4), 1785–1810. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soy093
18.
FontS. A.BergerL. M.SlackK. S. (2012). Examining racial disproportionality in child protective services case decisions. Children and Youth Services Review, 34(11), 2188–2200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.07.012
19.
HarrisM. S.HackettW. (2008). Decision points in child welfare: An action research model to address disproportionality. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(2), 199–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2007.09.006.
HoynesH. W.PatelA. J. (2018). Effective policy for reducing poverty and inequality? The earned income tax credit and the distribution of income. Journal of Human Resources, 53(4), 859–890. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.53.4.1115.7494R1
22.
JonesC. P. (2000). Levels of racism: A theoretic framework and a gardener’s tale. American Journal of Public Health, 90(8), 1212–1215. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.90.8.1212
23.
Jonson-ReidM.DrakeB.KohlP. L. (2009). Is the overrepresentation of the poor in child welfare caseloads due to bias or need?Children and Youth Services Review, 31(3), 422–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2008.09.009
24.
KarpmanM.ZuckermanS.GonzalezD. (2018). Material hardship among nonelderly adults and their families in 2017. Urban Institute.
25.
KimH.WildemanC.Jonson-ReidM.DrakeB. (2017). Lifetime prevalence of investigating child maltreatment among US children. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), 274–280. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303545
26.
KleinS.MerrittD. H. (2014). Neighborhood racial & ethnic diversity as a predictor of child welfare system involvement. Children and Youth Services Review, 41, 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.03.009.
27.
KovskiN. L.HillH. D.MooneyS. J.RivaraF. P.MorganE. R.Rowhani-RahbarA. (2021). Association of state-level earned income tax credits with rates of reported child maltreatment, 2004–2017. Child Maltreatment.
28.
KriegerN. (2014). Discrimination and health inequities. International Journal of Health Services, 44(4), 643–710. https://doi.org/10.2190/HS.44.4.b
29.
LanierP.Maguire-JackK.WalshT.DrakeB.HubelG. (2014). Race and ethnic differences in early childhood maltreatment in the United States. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 35(7), 419–426. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000000083
30.
LeeT. (2016). Processes of racialization in New York city’s child welfare system. City & Society, 28(3), 276–297. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12093
31.
LuY. E.LandsverkJ.Ellis-MacleodE.NewtonR.GrangerW.JohnsonI. (2004). Race, ethnicity, and case outcomes in child protective services. Children and Youth Services Review, 26(5), 276–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2004.02.002
32.
Maguire-JackK.LanierP.Johnson-MotoyamaM.WelchH.DineenM. (2015). Geographic variation in racial disparities in child maltreatment: The influence of county poverty and population density. Child Abuse & Neglect, 47(), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2015.05.020
33.
MallonG. P. (2020). Black and brown children’s and families’ lives matter. Child Welfare, 98(3), v–ix. SSN: 0009-4021
34.
MorganS. P.McDanielA.MillerA. T.PrestonS. H. (1993). Racial Differences in Household and Family Structure at the Turn of the Century. American Journal of Sociology, 98(4), 799–828. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2781236.
PacJ.GarfinkelI.KaushalN.NamJ.NolanL.WaldfogelJ.WimerC. (2020). Reducing poverty among children: Evidence from state policy simulations. Children and Youth Services Review, 115, Article 105030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105030
38.
PargasD. A. (2009). Disposing of human property: American slave families and forced separation in comparative perspective. Journal of Family History, 34(3), 251–274. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363199009337394
39.
ParkeM. (2004). Marriage-related provisions in welfare reauthorization proposals: A summary. Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
40.
ParolinZ. (2019). Temporary assistance for needy families and the black–white child poverty gap in the United States. Socio-Economic Review, 19(3), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwz025.
Putnam-HornsteinE.NeedellB.KingB.Johnson-MotoyamaM. (2013). Racial and ethnic disparities: A population-based examination of risk factors for involvement with child protective services. Child Abuse & Neglect, 37(1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.08.005
ReardonS. F. (2016). School segregation and racial academic achievement gaps. The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2(5), 34–57. https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2016.2.5.03
47.
ReichmanN. E.TeitlerJ. O.GarfinkelI.McLanahanS. S. (2001). Fragile families: Sample and design. Children and Youth Services Review, 23(4–5), 303–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0190-7409(01)00141-4
48.
RobertsD. E. (2002). Shattered bonds: The color of child welfare. Basic Books.
49.
RothsteinR. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing Corporation.
SlackK. S.BergerL. M.DuMontK.YangM.-Y.KimB.Ehrhard-DietzelS.HollJ. L. (2011). Risk and protective factors for child neglect during early childhood: A cross-study comparison. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(8), 1354–1363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.04.024
WaldfogelJ. (1998). The future of child protection: How to break the cycle of abuse and neglect. Harvard University Press.
58.
WebbE.MaddocksA.BongilliJ. (2002). Effectively protecting black and minority ethnic children from harm: Overcoming barriers to the child protection process. Child Abuse Review, 11(6), 394–410. https://doi.org/10.1002/car.760
59.
WesternB.WildemanC. (2009). The Black family and mass incarceration. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 621(1), 221–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208324850
60.
ZhangLNepomnyaschyLSimmelC (2021). So close yet so different: neighborhood. In Inequality and child maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect.
61.
ZuberiT. (2001). Thicker than blood: How racial statistics lie. University of Minnesota Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
