Refugee children receive help more often from child welfare authorities

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Immigrant children are more often in contact with child welfare authorities than most children in Norway. This is particularly true of refugee children and children of immigrants from Africa and Asia.

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Among immigrant children with a refugee background, 60 per 1,000 children aged 0 to 19 received help by the end of 1995. By comparison there were only 13 clients per 1,000 children among foreign adoptees, which is also the group with the lowest percentage of children under protection. Both children with a Norwegian and a foreign-born parent and immigrant children without a refugee background received help more often than, for instance, Norwegian children (children born to Norwegian parents). The respective rates in the two former groups are 28 and 26 per cent, against 17 per cent in the latter group.

The majority of foreign adoptees and immigrant children without a refugee background, respectively 65 and 57 per cent, lived together with both parents. Among Norwegian children and children of ethnically mixed families, however, households headed by a single parent dominated. Here, over half, respectively 54 and 60 per cent, lived with only one parent. Among children with a refugee background, in comparison, one in three came from single-parent households. Children of single parents receive far more services from child welfare authorities than children who live with married or cohabiting parents.

New Statistics

Immigrant children and child welfare services.
The article is a summary of a more extensive article published in Samfunnsspeilet no. 3/97. More information: Trygve Kalve, tel. +47 21 09 46 49, e-mail: tak@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 38, 1997