Economic incentives for fostering Jamaican children

The practice of informal child fostering is pervasive in the Caribbean and other parts of the developing world. While the reasons for fostering out a child are clear it is not clear why an individual would accept the task of caring for someone else's child. In this paper we argue that acceptance of a foster child goes beyond altruism and indeed has some strong economic motives. Using multivariate regression analysis and data from Jamaica we show the demand for foster children comes primarily from rural household, farm households and elderly householders. This pattern is consistent with the use of foster children to adjust the household's labor supply to the desired level. The biological parents of foster children also appear to be important financial contributors to the foster household.