Adoption by the Numbers: Part 1

Last week we received this book in the mail....

to most people this looks like a very boring book. It looks like a huge textbook from college to tell you the truth. HOWEVER, this is 550 pages of the latest adoption statistics, data, and research. I LOVE this stuff. I'm a huge nerd and will talk about things in here forever if Leslie, Judy, and Kelsey would let me. I haven't been able to read as much of it as I want to, but when I have a free minute or two I read a few articles. I thought I would break down some of the big stuff for you guys. Some of this is interesting and some of it I just like what they're saying! 

Adoption By the Numbers - Paul Placek

The latest data for this was 2007. .

Unrelated domestic adoptions of infants in 2007:

1982 -  17,602

1986 -  24,589

1992 -  26,672

1996 -  23,537

2002 -  22,291

2007 -  18,078  

In 2007 there were 76,489 unrelated domestic adoptions (infant and older children).

56.2% of these were through government funded public agencies

26.5% through private agencies (like Inheritance)

17.3% private individuals (private adoption without an agency)

The numbers show a steady increase in Private agency adoptions and a steady decrease in independent adoptions. It should be noted that in several states independent adoptions are illegal so that could play a roll in the decline. Since I am a Birth Parent Counselor the main problem I have with independent adoptions is the lack of counseling. Most states require a certain amount of counseling prior to placement. Some states do not specify if this counselor must be knowledgeable and educated on adoption though. Since I have walked through many adoptions with girls I can ASSURE you they ALL need someone knowledgeable about adoption walking through this with them. At Inheritance we pride ourselves on putting the birth mom first. We want HER needs to be met. We go to training to figure out better ways of helping them cope. I often times see birth moms who placed through an independent adoption and they have many unresolved issues. This does not mean that everyone who goes through a private agency will come out with zero grief. Zero grief will never happen, and I would never tell that to one of my birth moms. I feel like just preparing them to the best of our abilities and being there does wonders though. 

The National Council for Adoption uses ratios to show the relative sizes of two quantities:

In 2007... 

• there were 279.4 abortions for every 1,000 live births, or about 28 abortions for every 100 live births.
• only 15 infant adoptions per 1,000 abortions. 
• 4.2 domestic infant adoptions per 1,000 live births.... which boils down to less than .5% of live births ending in adoption.
• 10.3 adoptions per 1,000 nonmarital live births in 2007, down from 18.7 in 1996. This ratio of infant adoptions per 1,000 nonmarital live births is a better yardstick, because unmarried women are more likely to choose adoption for their babies, and this ratio indicates infant adoptions in relation to the frequency of nonmarital life births. This also indicates that about 1% of unmarried mothers chose adoption for their infants, and over 99% parented the baby.

There are many more numbers to get to... I will save them for next week!! The brain can only process so many numbers at once! Thank you National Council for Adoption for all of the great data!

Misty