In society today and throughout history, gender always has an impact on people’s lives in numerous different ways.
This article looks specifically at how it impacted and, still to this day, impacts children in care throughout their lives. Gender still affects everybody’s life, with there still being equality issues and the feminism movement still ongoing! But firstly, does your gender impact whether you’re more likely to go into care? From early records we aren’t sure, however in modern times, boys are!
17th-18th Century
There’s not a lot of information available about who was more likely to go into care from this period. However, we do know it depends on what type of care you go into. For example, girls were more likely to be fostered, whereas boys were more likely to be adopted.
Why was this the case? Firstly, when children were fostered this was usually in the expectation that over time they would provide care to their foster carer, and these were usually girls. This is because in the past caring behaviours were associated with femininity, and in general women were expected to perform these roles in society as a whole. Younger girls were often expected to deputise for their mother’s caring responsibilities. Families would choose a boy or a girl to foster depending on their economic circumstances, too. Even young children were expected to work, and so a family might choose a boy or a girl to do specific jobs, such as milking cows or making shoes.
However, inheritance had a significant impact on who was more likely to be adopted. Families who wanted to adopt a child to provide an heir for their land or property almost always wanted to adopt a boy. Britain for most of its history was a patriarchal society, and so legally men had more rights over property than women. A woman would lose most of her property when she married, as it would pass to her husband’s ownership, and so a family hoping to create a strong dynasty would want to make sure that it would be passed intact from father to son, and not pass into another family on marriage. Men also gained more power and influence from owning property. A wealthy male landowner could stand as an MP or hold titles like Baronet or Duke, which were not in general open to women. There was therefore little point in adopting a girl as an heir.
Gender equality today
There has obviously been a lot of change in the UK from the 17 and 18th centuries through to present day which have directly impacted children in care, such as more child protection and gender equality laws; the 1989 Children’s Act and, of course, women getting the right to vote.How does this impact children in care? Since the 1989 Children’s Act the number of children in care has massively increased. In the 21st Century research shows that more boys than girls end up in care overall with the gender split being 56.1% boys and 43.9% girls.
However, girls are marginally more likely to be adopted than boys from care.
Research also shows that girls were also more likely to be placed into foster care or children’s homes. Whereas, boys were more likely to be placed into youth offenders’ institutions.
Historical consultancy by Dr Kate Gibson
References
Department for Education. (2018). Children looked after in England (including adoption), year ending 31 March 2018. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018
Office for National Statistics. (2022). Who are the children entering care in England? Newport: Office for National Statistics. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/socialcare/articles/whoarethechildrenenteringcareinengland/2022-11-04
Ministry of Justice. (2025). Youth Justice Statistics: 2023 to 2024. London: Ministry of Justice. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-justice-statistics-2023-to-2024