What makes a family or person an ”optimal” candidate?
Despite more African American children being in foster care, a
disproportionate amount of Caucasian children are adopted. According to
the AFCARS data, African American children make up 56% of the foster
care population but 42% of the adopted population, while Caucasian
children make up 18% of the foster population but 33% of the adopted
population (A .75 adoption:foster care ratio versus a 1.83
adoption:foster care ratio). However, the correlation between African
American foster children and Caucasian foster children suggest that they
are fundamentally different in behavior, family structure, etc ( -.68).
While caucasian foster families and adoptive parents are often married,
african american foster families and adoptive parents are often single
females. Defining the optimal candidate as someone who will eventually
adopt the child, perhaps providing single adoptive mothers a greater
monetary benefit will close this adoption gap. Compared to married
families single mothers make significantly less money in the United
States and may not be able to afford to adopt a child.
Another preferable characteristic of a foster family is that they are
not a group home or institution, but rather they are fostering a few
children at a time. A logistic regression [3] predicting goal of
adoption signifies that those in a group home, institution, or even a
family member’s home are less likely to establish their goal as
adoption.