Predicting Willingness to Adopt a Child: A Consideration of Demographic and Attitudinal Factors

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study to identify demographic and attitudinal factors associated with willingness to adopt a child. Data were gathered from a randomly drawn sample of married individuals ( n = 185) and a nonrandom sample of public adoption agency applicants ( n = 47) from a medium-sized midwestern city. The data were analyzed together and separately using multiple regression. The study concludes that the most consistent covariates of willingness to adopt a child are the infertility status of both respondent and spouse, and exposure to adoptive relationships. Relationships among attitudes emphasizing the importance of biological ties in kinship, the belief that adoptive parenthood is inferior to biologically based parenthood, and willingness to adopt were significant at the bivariate level; however, the only attitudinal factor significantly associated with willingness to adopt in the full multivariate model was pronatalist beliefs. The author discusses the implications of this study for adoption practice, and suggests areas for future research.