childcare-50years

3
figures available show that in 1974 the 211 adoptions of children by
'strangers' accounted for 64 per cent of 332 adoptions. By 1987 there
were 104 'stranger' adoptions accounting for only 36 per cent of 285
adoptions. The remaining adoptions involved stepparents or other
relatives.
O'Halloran (1994) shows that both the annual rates of adoption and
marriage reached their peak during this period, despite little or no
change in the rate of illegitimate births. From the early 1970s to the
late 1980s, he claims, several statistical trends are apparent which had
a direct bearing on shaping the modern use of adoption:
• marriage became less popular with a marked decrease in the
marriage rate after the introduction of the Matrimonial Causes
(NI) Order 1978 and the Domestic Proceedings (NI) Order 1980;
• childbirth became less dependent on marriage (perhaps as a
consequence of the above) and the number of illegitimate births
increased from 3.8 per 1000 to 12.7 per 1000 in 1986, accompanied
by preferential welfare benefits for single parents;
• advances in law and medicine increased the extent to which
maternity became a chosen option. Pregnancy could be avoided
through the use of improved contraceptives or terminated by
abortion. Persons undergoing abortion in England but giving an
address in Northern Ireland increased from 199 in 1970 to 1,724 in
1986; and
• more children were being cared for by the State. Numbers
increased from 1,717 in 1970 to 2,448 in 1984 with the proportion
of those committed under a compulsory care order rising from
37.6 per cent in 1964 to 74.8 per cent in 1984.
The stigma associated with illegitimacy had diminished by the early
1980s - "the status of unmarried motherhood came to be absorbed
into the rapidly growing number of 'lone mothers' which followed
the relaxation of the grounds for divorce ... the issues of illegitimacy
... were subsumed into the new concern about lone parenthood, a
concern partly aroused by the poverty with which it was often
50 YEARS OF CHILD CARE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
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