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.