Safer Compared to What? (2025) is a December 2025 published in The Imprint.

Writer Richard Wexler explores findings from a recent Swedish study that “followed children in more than 21,000 cases of child abuse or neglect allegations”.

Some of the sample children were in foster care, the others remained in their families of origin.

The study found though…

“…the two groups were no worse off to begin with, by age 20, the foster children were more than four times more likely to have died than the children allowed to stay with their families.”

The lead researcher found the results “staggering”.

According to Wexler, there are other studies (included in the article) which show that “family separation” is “inherently harmful”, that so often foster children do worse than those left with their families.