Income support and child protection

Previous research has shown that household economic insecurity and the need for child protection services are inextricably associated. Thus, the more economically insecure households there are in a municipality, the higher the demand will be in child protection services. On the other hand, studies have shown that the demand for child protection services may be reduced by additional income support.

In the present study, we explore in the Finnish context whether additional income support for economically insecure households reduces the demand for child protection services at the municipality level. The reducing mechanism of additional income support is well studied but mostly in the US context and there are less studies from Europe and particularly from the Nordic countries such as Finland. The present study examines whether a similar mechanism works in a Nordic country, where all citizens are entitled to basic income support