Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 2, 1992 TAG: 9203020061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Relinquishment rates among black and Hispanic mothers of children born out of wedlock were virtually unchanged over the same period. They have long been minuscule, and remain below the white rate.
When the white adoption-relinquishment rate began to fall in the 1970s, researchers attributed the decline to the legalization of abortion in 1972, which enabled many more women to terminate unwanted pregnancies. But after doubling from 1973 to 1980, the annual number of abortions in this country leveled off during the 1980s, while adoption relinquishments continued to decline.
This has led researchers toward a new hypothesis: the principal cause of the decline in adoptions is not legal, but cultural. It reflects the weakening of the stigma of out-of-wedlock child-rearing in a society where 27 percent of all children are born out of wedlock - four times the percentage of just 25 years ago.
"The signs from the 1980s certainly point in the direction of cultural forces," said Christine Bachrach, a statistician at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a co-author of the study published in the Alan Guttmacher Institute's "Family Planning Perspectives."
The study found that:
Before 1973, 19.3 percent of children born to never-married white women were placed for adoption, compared with 7.6 percent from 1973 to 1981 and 3.2 percent from 1982 to 1988. Among never-married black women, fewer than 2 percent of children were placed for adoption, both before 1973 and since. Relinquishment rates are even lower among Hispanics. Informal adoption and the use of extended families to raise children always have been more common in minority communities.
The greater the "opportunity cost" at the time of pregnancy, the more likely an unmarried white women is to put up her child for adoption. For example, women who have left school before their pregnancy are one-third as likely to give up their child for adoption as those who are still in school, and for whom the responsibilities of parenthood may impinge on career or educational aspirations. Older unmarried white mothers are more likely to give up their children than younger unmarried women, perhaps because they can better consider their child's interests as well as their own, Bachrach speculated.
White women are twice as likely to give up daughters born out of wedlock as sons. The researchers speculated that unmarried mothers may be less confident that a son will find an adoptive home, because research shows that couples seeking to adopt prefer girls. They also speculated that sons may be kept because they may provide more of a link to the child's father.
The decline in relinquishment rates explains why, despite the explosion in out-of-wedlock births, the annual number of adoptions has dropped. After peaking at 89,200 in 1970, domestic unrelated adoptions have been averaging about 50,000 a year during the 1980s, National Committee for Adoption officials estimate. There are also about 50,000 related adoptions per year.
Mary Beth Seader, vice president of the National Committee for Adoption, said she believes the principal reason for the decline in the number of children offered for adoption is that pregnancy counselors do not raise the option with teen-age parents. She cited other studies that show when this option is discussed during counseling, relinquishment rates rise.
by CNB