Child-Adoption Matching: Preferences for Gender and Race

This paper uses a new dataset on child-adoption matching to estimate the preferences of potential adoptive parents over US-born and unborn children relinquished for adoption. We identify significant preferences favoring girls and against African American children put up for adoption. These attitudes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American economic journal. Applied economics 2014-07, Vol.6 (3), p.133-158
Main Authors: Baccara, Mariagiovanna, Collard-Wexler, Allan, Felli, Leonardo, Yariv, Leeat
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adopted children
Adoption
African Americans
Boys
Children
Children & youth
Costs
Couples
Datasets
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economics
Female homosexuality
Gender
Girls
Group facilitation
Hispanic people
Hispanics
Parents & parenting
Preferences
Race
Same sex marriage
Social research
Studies
Websites
White people
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Summary:This paper uses a new dataset on child-adoption matching to estimate the preferences of potential adoptive parents over US-born and unborn children relinquished for adoption. We identify significant preferences favoring girls and against African American children put up for adoption. These attitudes vary in magnitudes across different adoptive parents—heterosexual, same-sex couples, and single women. We consider the effects of excluding single women and same-sex couples from the process, and find that this would substantially reduce the overall number of adopted children.
ISSN:1945-7782
1945-7790
DOI:10.1257/app.6.3.133