Who are the mothers who place their children?
Women who voluntarily place their children for adoption are likely to have greater educational and vocational goals for themselves than those who keep their children in similar circumstances. Birth mothers who plan for their child’s adoption often come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Most are also from intact families which have not experienced teenage pregnancies and support placing the baby. Women whose mothers completed at least one year of college were three times more likely to place their babies for adoption than women whose mothers did not complete high school. Birth mothers who place their children tend to be between 17 to 30 years old and have no more than a high school education. Most are not related to the adoptive parents. Many mothers, though, have some contact with the adoptive family and are involved in the selection of the parents. Fifteen percent of recent births to never-married women and 18 percent of those to formerly married were unwanted by the mother at ti
