But here is an adoption story that has not received quite as much attention. And it shines the spotlight on the crisis of black children unable to find parents to adopt them. A newly minted study by the California institute of Technology, New York University and the London School of Economics examined the preferences of Americans who want to adopt children. The data were collected between 2004 and 2009, and reflect the views of both straight and gay prospective parents. The study found that adoptive parents have very strong preferences for girls, and children who are not African-American.
The report found, unexpectedly, that girls are one-third more likely to attract adoptive parents than boys. In the general population, there is a slight preference for boys. Moreover, a baby who is not African-American is seven times more desirable to potential adoptive parents than a black baby. Although all of the parents in the study were white, surprisingly Latino and white children fared about the same.
In an unseemly way, all of this translates into dollars in America's $2-3 billion adoption market: Parents were willing to pay $16,000 more for a girl than a boy, but $38,000 more for a non-African-American baby than a black one.
