Richard B. McKenzie, an economics and management professor at the University of California, Irvine, and an orphanage alumnus, writes in the January 15, 2010, Wall Street Journal about a Duke University study of children raised in orphanages:

Last month, Duke University researchers issued the first report on their multiyear study of 3,000 orphaned, abandoned and neglected children in developing countries in Africa and East and South Asia. About half were reared in small and large "institutions" (or orphanages) and half in "community" programs (kin and foster care). Contrary to conventional wisdom, the researchers found that children raised in orphanages by nonfamily members were no worse in their health, emotional and cognitive functioning, and physical growth than those cared for in their communities by relatives. More important, the orphanage-reared children performed better than their counterparts cared for by community strangers, which is commonly the case in foster-care programs....

During the past decade I have surveyed more than 2,500 alumni from 15 American orphanages. In two journal articles, I reported the same general conclusion: The orphanage alumni have outpaced their counterparts in the general population often by wide margins in almost all social and economic measures, including educational attainment, income and positive attitude toward life. White orphanage alumni had a 39% higher rate of college graduation than white Americans of the same age in the general population, and less than 3% had hostile memories of their orphanage experiences. University of Alabama historian David Beito replicated the study with several hundred alumni from another orphanage, reaching much the same conclusions....

There were bad orphanages in the past, and there are, no doubt, bad orphanages across the globe, but the same can just as easily be said of many biological and foster families. Good orphanages, which provide long-term care for disadvantaged children (and are different from group homes, which provide short-term care, often for difficult children), are not the only solution for all modern child-welfare problems, but neither is foster care nor adoption. Children need options, including orphanage care.