Patterns of service provision in child welfare investigations by migration background: A Swedish cross-sectional study

International research has long suggested disparities in involvement with the child welfare system and access to child welfare services (CWS) between children from majority and non-majority populations. This study examines the associations between migration background and investigation outcomes for children with indicated problems investigated by CWS, stratified by gender and age. Using multinomial regression analyses and unique data from 1,519 completed child welfare investigations across eight agencies in Sweden, the study examines differences in the provision of both in-home services and out-of-home care, before and after adjustments for sociodemographic and case-specific factors. Compared to native-born children with native-born parents, both native-born girls and boys and younger children with at least one foreign-born parent, as well as foreign-born children aged 13 years or older, and foreign-born girls, had lower unadjusted odds of receiving in-home services. When adjusted for sociodemographic and case-specific factors, these differences were no longer significant. In contrast, foreign-born boys and native-born boys with at least one foreign-born parent aged 13 years or older had higher odds of receiving out-of-home care in both univariate and multivariate multinomial regression analyses. While these results may reflect an association between migration background and out-of-home care placement, the wide confidence intervals indicate that further research with larger sample sizes is needed to confirm whether this pattern is consistent and to identify potential underlying mechanisms driving decision-making rationales.