How Many Children Are Adopted Each Year?
The most recent figures available are for 2004-05 when 3,800 children were adopted, out of 60,900 children in care. Of the remaining children in care, 40% will eventually return home. One of the aims of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 was to increase the number of children adopted and a new adoption register was set up to help with this. 1,000 more children were adopted in 2004-05 than in the same period five years earlier, an increase of 38%. What are their backgrounds? Children waiting for adoption come from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. They range in age from toddlers to teenagers, but it is rare for babies to come up for adoption. The average age at which children were adopted last year was four years and two months but only 210 (5%) were less than a year old. Many children waiting to be adopted have had troubled early lives and some have been abused or neglected. Charity BAAF Adoption and Fostering said that of the 1,732 children who were referred to the a
Where the Numbers Come From The federal government tracks the numbers of adoptions from the U.S. foster care system, and international adoptions; however, since 1992, numbers of private agency and independent adoptions have not been formally reported. The 2000 Census, for the first time in history, included questions about adopted children in the household.
This is the most recent stat that I saw posted in a document here the other day: According to the National Council For Adoption,there were 130,269 domestic adoptions and 21,063 intercountry adoptions in 2002. (In 1996 there were 108,463 domestic adoptions and 11,303 intercountry adoptions.) US Census figures in 2000 indicated that nearly 1.6 million children and teenagers under 18 years in the US and Puerto Rico are adopted. Edit: For those childish enough to TD this either provide better stats (for which I’m sure both the asker of the question and I will be grateful) or at least have the courtesy to answer the question yourself.
It is estimated that around 120,000 children are adopted by U.S. citizens each year. Approximately half of these children are adopted by individuals not related to them (called “stranger adoptions”) and about half are adopted by relatives such as grandparents or stepparents. Anecdotal evidence indicates that stepparents are the largest single group of adopters. • In fiscal year 2003, approximately 21,616 children were adopted through international adoption (source: U.S. Department of State). • In fiscal year 2002, approximately 51,000 children were adopted from the U.S. foster care system (source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services). • There are no statistics on adult adoptions. How Many People Have a Family Connection to Adoption? Estimates put the number of adopted persons in the U.S. somewhere between 6 and 10 million. A 1997 survey by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that 6 in 10 Americans have had personal experience with adoption: they themselves, a family m
