I am a fan of statistics because I think they give me a framework to understand the world. They don't give me THE ANSWER, but they help me get closer to my answer.

 During my adoption research in 1999, I analyzed international adoption trends. I was trying to find out which country had the most stable international adoption program.  It isn't any surprise but Korea was the most stable in 1999. Ukraine and Guatemala were attractive as well. Eventually after about a year of researching, I decided to adopt from Ukraine.

I will start posting more frequent statistics posts, but in the meantime I thought that I would share my favorite source for international adoption statistics. It is the U.S. government.

Homeland Security has 12 years worth of immigration data on line. You can find out how many children came in on IR3 or IR4 visas. You can find out how many children were adopted from each country, their gender and age range. But you have to poke around some to find everything.

If you want to do your own trending analysis on international adoption, here is the data for 2003-2007. 

• Immigrant Orphans Adopted by U.S. Citizens by Gender, Age, and Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Year 2007 
• Immigrant Orphans Adopted by U.S. Citizens by Gender, Age, and Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Year 2006
• Immigrant Orphans Adopted by U.S. Citizens by Gender, Age, and Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Year 2005
• Immigrants-orphans adopted by U.S. citizens by gender, age, and region and country of birth: fiscal year 2004
• Immigrants-Orphans Adopted by U.S. Citizens by Gender, Age, and Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Year 2003