International Adoption Trends Over 12 Years

Submitted by AngelaW on Tue, 04/08/2008 - 12:58

International Adoption TrendsAs I mentioned in my prior blog, details on internationally adopted children have been released by the Office of Immigration Statistics. I like numbers because I think they add context.

I mean really.... When someone (adopion agency, stranger at the grocery store, email buddy) says most families adopted older children from Ukraine what does this actually mean? Well these numbers can help answer that question. But first I want to look at high-level trends.

The rate of growth for international adoptions has never been steady. The growth rate first dipped into negative territory in 2005. And notice the stagnate growth in 2003. The number of international adoptions completed by Americans in 2007 is about the same 2001.

 

Year Total International Adoptions % Change
2007 19,471 -6%
2006 20,705 -9%
2005 22,710 -1%
2004 22,911 7%
2003 21,320 1%
2002 21,100 11%
2001 19,087 5%
2000 18,120 13%
1999 16,037 8%
1998 14,867 18%
1997 12,596 11%
1996 11,316  

 

My theory on why international adoptions have decreased is based on the availability of infants. I don't think gender has anything to do with it. If you remove China from the gender statistics, then on average Americans adopt equal numbers of boys and girls. China skews the gender statistics because 95% of the China adopted children are girls.

 


Gender of Internationally Adopted Children
Year % Male % Female % Male Without China % Female Without China
2007 39% 61% 48% 52%
2006 37% 63% 49% 51%
2005 34% 66% 50% 50%
2004 35% 65% 49% 51%
2003 35% 65% 49% 51%
2002 35% 65% 48% 52%
2001 37% 63% 47% 53%
2000 35% 65% 48% 52%
1999 36% 64% 48% 52%
1998 36% 64% 49% 51%
1997 37% 64% 49% 52%
1996 36% 64% 50% 50%

 

Here is why I think the drop in the number of international adoptions is an age thing. I believe that fewer infants were available in 2003 then expected. (Maybe this actually started in 2001/2002.) Bluntly, demand for infants was bigger then the supply. Some families adjusted their expectations and waited longer to complete their adoption. And some adopted children who were 1-4 years of age. And this is why international adoption didn't have a negative growth in 2004. But starting in 2005 there were even fewer young children available.

 

international adoption trends

Twelve years ago, 54% of the international adopted children were under 1 year of age. In 2007 40% of the adopted children were under 1 year. It has become harder to adopt younger children for a variety of reasons. Some families just aren't willing to adopt older children. So they will wait 2 years to adopt an infant. Or they will decide to adopt domestically.

But there are other families who aren't as focused on age. So there has been an increase in older child adoptions.

  • 1996 - 35% of children were 1-4 years of age
  • 2007 - 43% of children were 1-4 years of age

 

  • 1996 - 11% of children were 5 years or older
  • 2007 - 17% of children were 5 years or older

 Next blog will start looking at adoption trends for different countries. I will start by looking at Ukraine because I adopted from there in 2000.

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