... I read a paper the other day which makes an interesting contribution here. It’s from the American Sociological Review, February 2007 and is by Laura Hamilton, Simon Cheng Brian Powell. (I’ve linked you to the table of contents the article is not on-line. If anyone wants a copy, you can e-mail me.)

The authors wanted to examine the importance of biological ties for parental investment. They begin by offering several different theoretical approaches and consider what outcomes might be expected under each of these theories. Among those considered are those grounded in evolutionary theory, some of which suggest that people are more likely to promote the well-being of genetic kin than of non-genetic kin.

It’s hard to measure commitment of parents to their children directly–what is the unit of commitment? So the authors concentrate on indicators of parental investment. They look at four types of parent resources–economic, cultural, interactional and social capital. And they look at families with two biologically related parents, two adoptive parents, and various single-parent and step-parent families. (The latter are sometimes referred to as ”alternative families.) Perhaps most importantly, they control for factors like wealth of the family. (This is critical because adoptive families tend to be higher income families, and so if you didn’t control for this, the fact that they spend more money on kids won’t tell you much.)

The authors find that adoptive families show as much and sometimes greater levels of investment in their kids than do the two genetically-related parent families. I am not going to say that this makes them better families (although do recall that the investments measured are not merely financial ones) but it certainly undermines the contention that in the absence of biological ties, parents invest less in their kids.

It is possible that this investment by adoptive families is the result of efforts to compensate for a social context that favors parents who are biologically related. In other words, it’s precisely because people think biologically related parents are better that adoptive parents put in extra effort. That might have interesting implications which I don’t think are discussed in this study.

Labels: adoption, Julie Shapiro, parenting

posted by Eve at 7:56 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

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