The percentage of premarital births placed for adoption has decreased since the 1970s.
Women making adoption plans often come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds .
These women come from intact families which are supportive of the placement, and which have not experienced teenage pregnancies by other family members. In a study of adoption trends in California, it was found birth mothers who place their children independently tend to be aged 17 to 30 years old, and have no more than a high school education. The majority are not related to the adoptive parents. Many mothers, though, have some contact with the adoptive family, and were involved in the selection of the adoptive parents. The 1995 National Survey of Family Growth found that 15 percent of recent births to never-married women and 18 percent of those to formerly married were unwanted by the mother at time of conception.