Happy Day to everyone. I am doing my happy dance because the 2009 immigration numbers were posted by the Office of Immigration Statistics. Children internationally adopted by American families are included in these numbers. I love playing with numbers and statistics.

With these numbers, I can look at average age or gender of children adopted from a specific country. I will be doing several different blogs on adoption statistics, but first I will start with 2009.

This isn't a big surprise but 47% of the children were adopted from Asia. (39% in 2008. 42% in 2007.)

The children were adopted from:

• Bangladesh
• China, People's Republic
• Hong Kong
• India
• Japan
• Korea
• Lebanon
• Pakistan
• Philippines
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Vietnam

21% of the children were adopted from Africa. (13% in 2008. 9% in 2007.)

• Congo, Republic
• Eritrea
• Ethiopia
• Ghana
• Kenya
• Liberia
• Morocco
• Nigeria
• Rwanda
• Swaziland
• Uganda
• Zambia

18% of the children were adopted from European countries. (18% in 2008. 20% in 2007.) The children are from:

• Armenia
• Bulgaria
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Russia
• Ukraine

10% of the children are from North America. (27% in 2008. 27% in 2007.) Immigration counted Central America and the Caribbean as part of North America. The big drop is due to Guatemalan adoptions being closed. There were 4,082 children adopted in 2008, but only 773 in 2009. Families adopted from:

• Dominican Republic
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Jamaica
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 

3% of the American families adopted from South America. (3% in 2008. 2% in 2007.) The children were adopted from:

• Brazil
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Guyana
• Peru

More of the adopted children were female then male. But if I exclude the China adoption numbers, then the statistics are equal. 50% of the children are boys vs 50% girls.

If you look at the trending for gender, there has always been a large gap between the number of male adopted children and female adopted children. And it has always been due to China. It is easy to see China's influence on female child adoptions over 14 years.

But 2009 was an unusual year. There was the least amount of difference between the genders... more gender equality.

So next I just looked at which countries adopt the most children from each age category. 94% of the children who were 1 year or younger were only adopted from 10 countries.

93% of the children who were 1-4 years old were adopted from 10 different countries.

89% of the children who were 5 years or older were adopted from 16 different countries.

91% of the boys were adopted from 15 countries.

92% of the girls were adopted from 14 countries.

Related Links

• International Adoption Statistics for 2008
• International Adoption Statistics for 2007
• US State Department, Adoption Info Moves and International Adoption Statistics for 2008
• Adoption Statistics
• Foster Care Adoption Statistics
• International Adoption Trends Over 12 Years
• Massachusetts and US Adoption Trends
• Race and Foster Care
• Research International Adoption Statistics
• Surprising Statistics On Russian Domestic Adoptions
• Teen Pregnancy Statistics
• Ukraine Adoption Statistics
• Who Are The International Adopted Children?
• Who is Most Likely to Adopt?