In the fiscal year of 2021, 27,145 of the children adopted in the United States with public agency involvement were white. In that same year, a further 10,991 children adopted in the country were Hispanic.

In 2021, there were 168,063 white children in foster care in the United States. This is compared to 86,645 Black or African American children and 85,215 Hispanic children who were in foster care.

Foster care in the United States

Foster care is where minors are taken care of in different institutions, such as a group home or private home of a caregiver certified by the state (called a foster parent). The procedure for becoming a foster parent in the United States varies from state to state. It is up to the state to determine the process; however it is overseen by the Department of Child Protective Services. It is sometimes seen as a precursor to adoption, which is different from fostering a child. There are many barriers to fostering and adopting children, such as high costs and long wait times, which can discourage people from doing it.

Who are foster children?

The number of children in foster care in the United States has decreased slightly since 2011. When looked at by age, most of the children in foster care in 2020 were one year old, and slightly more male children were in foster care than female children. Most of the children in foster care were placed into non-relative foster family homes, and in most cases, the primary goal of foster care is to reunify children with their parents or primary caregivers.

This 20-year longitudinal study, begun in 1969-1970, examines the influence of adoption on child and family development in intraracial, transracial, single-parent, and two-parent adoptive and biological families. Data collection included child, parent, and family interviews; and child completion of psychological tests, and questionnaires about racial and gender identity (e.g., Doll Puzzle, Doll Test, Semantic Differential Pictures, Toy Preferential Pictures, Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire), intelligence (e.g., Preschool Attainment Record, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Slosson Intelligence Test for Children and Adults), and social maturity (i.e., the Vineland Social Maturity Scale). Collectively, the study samples consisted of 158 African-American children ranging from birth to age two, and with approximately equal numbers of females and males. Seventy-five percent of adopting families were from the upper middle and middle class, and 25% were working class. The study participants were selected from single-parent, transracial, and traditional adoptive placements made by two Chicago agencies. The study included five groups: single parents at adoption; white parents transracially adopting; African-American parents adopting African-American children; single parents of biological children; and two-parent African-American families with biological child. Data collection has been continuous over 20 years with data collection periods spanning 1969-1972 across groups at Time I; 1973-1976 for all groups at Time II; 1977-1981 at Time III; 1982-1987 for Time IV; and 1987-1989 for Time V. The Murray Research Archive holds original record paper data from each cohort and each wave.

In 2022, there were about 4.15 million Black families in the United States with a single mother. This is an increase from 1990 levels, when there were about 3.4 million Black families with a single mother.

Single parenthood

The typical family is comprised of two parents and at least one child. However, that is not the case in every single situation. A single parent is someone who has a child but no spouse or partner. Single parenthood occurs for different reasons, including divorce, death, abandonment, or single-person adoption. Historically, single parenthood was common due to mortality rates due to war, diseases, and maternal mortality. However, divorce was not as common back then, depending on the culture.

Single parent wellbeing

In countries where social welfare programs are not strong, single parents tend to suffer more financially, emotionally, and mentally. In the United States, most single parents are mothers. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two parent households. The number of families with a single mother in the United States has increased since 1990, but the poverty rate of black families with a single mother has significantly decreased since that same year. In comparison, the poverty rate of Asian families with a single mother, and the percentage of white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother who live below the poverty level in the United States have both been fluctuating since 2002.