Infant adoption: psychosocial outcomes in adulthood

Adoption studies are able to provide important insights into the impact of changed rearing environments for children's development. A number of studies reporting on the childhood adjustment of adoptees have found an increased risk for disruptive behaviour problems when compared with children brought up in intact families. The long-term implications of adoption for psychosocial adjustment in adult life are less clear. We have used data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine the psychosocial functioning over a number of life-domains of an unselected sample of adoptees, non-adopted children from similar birth circumstances, and other members of the cohort. Adopted women showed very positive adult adjustment across all the domains examined in this study, whilst our findings suggest some difficulty in two specific domains (employment and social support) for adopted men. Implications of the findings are discussed.