The Economic Well-Being of Youth Transitioning from Foster Care: Opportunity Passport Participant…

“Nationally, only about 10 percent of all young people ages 16 to 24 are unemployed. But the unemployment rate for young people aging out of foster care is 47 percent to 69 percent, depending on age and gender….This brief is intended to help policymakers and service providers understand the barriers to education and employment for young people leaving foster care and help them design effective policies and practices to ensure these young people have the resources, relationships and opportunities needed as they transition into adulthood….

The Opportunity Passport™ program is a matched-savings intervention that [provides financial literacy training, a bank account, and matches their savings and] aims to improve young people’s financial capability as they transition from foster care into adulthood. This research brief examines employment data from Opportunity Passport participants who were at least 16 years old and completed at least three…[s]urveys…since 2008. [Data on] employment characteristics include [employment] rates, full-time status, average hours worked per week, hourly wages and training experiences….

For this brief, data analysts [The authors] measured improvement in these characteristics with age and termed it ‘economic progression.’ Economic progression was measured as sustained improvement in at least one of the characteristics, and was examined by age, gender and parenthood status. Where data were available, estimates were compared with the general population, using estimates from the nationally representative sample in the American Community Survey and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth….Estimates were also compared to other data on youth transitioning from foster care from the Midwest Study — a longitudinal study of over 700 young people aging out of foster care in three Midwestern states — and the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD)” (p.1-2).

“The brief concludes with specific recommendations for how policymakers and service providers should use this information to more effectively support young people” (p.1).

(Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

Full publication title: The Economic Well-Being of Youth Transitioning from Foster Care: Opportunity Passport Participant Survey Results Show Employment Helps Many Thrive

Key findings:

• Employment gains for black Opportunity Passport participants trailed those of their white peers from ages 16 to 21. White participants were more likely to experience employment progression than their black peers from ages 16 to 18. While the gap between white and black participants narrowed between the ages of 19 and 21, black participants lagged behind their white peers.
• Young parents did not achieve the same economic progression as their non-parent peers. Parenthood was associated with fewer transitions to employment across all age groups.
• Young people who experienced group placements did not achieve the same economic progression as their peers who did not live in group placements. Group placements were associated with lower rates of employment and hourly wages from ages 19 to 21 and from ages 22 to 24.
• Young people with more foster care placements had less economic progression from ages 19 to 21 compared with those with fewer foster care placements.
• Opportunity Passport participants seem to be faring well in employment. A higher proportion of Opportunity Passport participants are employed compared with young people in the general population as well as 17- and 19-year-old NYTD respondents. However, the differences in employment outcomes among the groups could be due to differences among participants in those groups. While it is encouraging that young people in foster care are finding employment, it is important to consider that employment alone is not a universally positive outcome — it could be due to necessity and lack of educational opportunity.

Several key actions and conditions can enable more young people to have equitable access to employment and education, including the following:

• Post-secondary institutions must create housing options that are supportive of youth who have been in foster care and lead to credential completion, such as offering two-bedroom apartments to allow siblings to stay with the student and providing year-round housing to avoid risk of homelessness during school breaks.
• Evidence-based career development and employment services must be provided to prepare young people for livable-wage jobs.
• Child welfare agencies should ensure implementation of the Opportunity Passport program or other similar matched savings program to give young people the developmental experience of managing finances and making wise decisions about how to spend their savings.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2017
• Author(s): Individual author not identified
• Organizational Author(s): Child Trends
• Funding Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Placido Gomez
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies