NCFA’s Landmark Adoption Factbook IV Reports Significant Rise in Domestic and International Adoptions, despite Further Decline in Infant Adoptions

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Contact: Lee A. Allen

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July 24, 2007 – Alexandria, Virginia – Comprehensive research on statistics and trends in American adoption reveal a rise in both domestic and intercountry adoptions from 1996 to 2002. Data and analysis from a nationwide adoption survey conducted by the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) show a 26.3 percent increase in the total number of adoptions, from 119,766 adoptions in 1996 to 151,332 in 2002. However, in spite of this encouraging rise in total adoptions, domestic infant adoption placements declined further since last measured in 1996, according to this landmark study in NCFA’s Adoption Factbook IV, and many hundreds of thousands of children are waiting to be adopted out of foster care or languishing in orphanages around the world.

A vital resource for all those involved in adoption policy and practice – legislators and policymakers, adoption practitioners and child welfare advocates, birthparents, adoptive parents, and people who were adopted into their families – NCFA’s 480-page Adoption Factbook IV is the most comprehensive source of adoption facts and statistics, as well as expert analysis and commentary, available today.

Adoption Factbook IV reports adoption data that enable readers to better understand current trends in adoption:

• There were 130,269 domestic adoptions of children by relatives and non-relatives in 2002, up from 108,463 in 1996. Adoptions from other countries increased significantly from 11,303 to 21,063 during the same period.

• The number of public agency adoptions increased dramatically from 24,366 in 1996 to 42,942 in 2002, reflecting encouraging increases in the number of children being adopted out of foster care. However, the most current foster care data show a total number of children waiting to be adopted from foster care exceeding 114,000.

• Domestic infant adoptions declined 5.3 percent from 23,537 in 1996 to 22,291 by 2002.

• There were 16.3 infant adoptions per 1,000 non-marital live births in 2002, down from 18.7 in 1996. Unmarried mothers chose adoption for their infants in 2002 at the rate of 1.6 percent.  Infant adoptions per 1,000 abortions declined from 19.4 in 1996 to 17.0 in 2002.

Adoption data appearing in Adoption Factbook IV were collected by Dr. Paul Placek, a veteran of the National Center for Health Statistics. The adoption data examine 2002 statistics compiled from each state. International adoption data also include country-by-country information.

“The research in this book represents a body of work that cannot be matched in terms of its completeness and accuracy,” says Lee Allen, NCFA’s Vice President of Communications and co-editor, with Virginia C. Ravenel, of Adoption Factbook IV. “In particular, unlike the infant adoption ‘estimates’ that are sometimes reported, NCFA’s Adoption Factbook IV is the only source of infant adoption numbers based on an actual state-by-state survey of adoption officials.”

These data appear alongside thought-provoking articles, written by today’s preeminent adoption authorities, discussing the most pressing issues facing adoption, such as:

• Findings from America’s leading adoption-openness researchers that the development of adoptive identity is not significantly correlated to level of openness and that the research recommends no “one-size-fits-all” openness policy;

• Policy proposals to better serve children in foster care through greater flexibility in federal foster care financing, increased attention to the crucial, neglected strategy of parent recruitment, and juvenile and family court improvement through court performance measures and judicial leadership;

• A critical look at proposed reforms to the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children as a missed opportunity to improve the broken process of adoption across state lines; and

• Analysis of a comprehensive survey of American public attitudes toward infant adoption compiled by one the nation’s foremost polling organizations; extrapolating from the survey,  ten-million couples of parenting age in the United States would seek to adopt an infant if they felt they had a realistic opportunity to do so.

In addition, policy discussions in Adoption Factbook IV delve into matters relevant to the expense of adoption; the increase in single-parenting and children in foster care and the simultaneous decrease in infant adoptions; how to adopt internationally, and an overview of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, to name only a few.

Thomas Atwood, NCFA’s President and CEO and executive editor of Adoption Factbook IV, says, “The National Council For Adoption is proud to publish our fourth edition of this authoritative and comprehensive reference on adoption policy and practice. We are grateful to the many contributors to this publication – policy leaders, adoption professionals, researchers and advocates, and parties to adoption. It is a privilege to work with this broad coalition to report data and trends in adoption, which is so vital to the well-being of children, birthparents, adoptive families, and society.”       

Adoption Factbook IV and other publications are available now and can be ordered by visiting NCFA’s Web site at www.adoptioncouncil.org. To arrange interviews or for more information about this publication or the National Council For Adoption, contact Lee Allen at 1-866-21-ADOPT or via email at lallen@adoptioncouncil.org.

About NCFA: Since 1980, NCFA has been a leading voice among national adoption and child welfare organizations. NCFA is a research, education, and advocacy nonprofit that provides adoption information, promotes ethical adoption practices, informs public policy and opinion about adoption issues, and serves as a resource for women with unplanned pregnancies, adopted persons and their families, those seeking to adopt, and adoption professionals.

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