![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
BY ROBIN HILBORN, Family Helper editor
Peter Selman (Mar. 15, 2011)
Year after year, the numbers are falling. International adoptions peaked in 2004 at over 45,000 and fell to about 30,000 in 2009, a decrease of one-third in six years.
The current decline looks set to continue in 2010 and onward, Dr. Peter Selman of Britain's Newcastle University told Family Helper (www.familyhelper.net).
Dr. Selman is an authority on international adoption statistics. His new survey of intercountry adoption in the 21st century will appear as a chapter in Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices and Outcomes, edited by Judith Gibbons and Karen Rotabi (Ashgate 2011, forthcoming).
International adoption is complex: in 2009 around 30,000 children left their birth country and moved to a new country often thousands of miles away. China still leads as a source country, sending about 5,000 children to adoptive homes abroad in 2009 (see Table 1 below). U.S. families adopted the most children from other countries: 12,753 in fiscal year 2009 (see Table 2 below).
For decades, until 2004, the numbers had gone steadily upward. In his article "The rise and fall of intercountry adoption in the 21st century" (pdf), (International Social Work, September 2009), Dr. Selman charted how intercountry adoption (ICA) developed over ten years—1998 to 2007—in 22 countries.
He found remarkable changes. Ever since the first children left South Korea in 1953 the numbers rose yearly, to over 45,000 worldwide in 2004. But although the number of applicants in receiving countries kept growing, the global number of adoptions started falling: by 17% between 2004 and 2007.
Dr. Selman sent Family Helper the following tables and graphs, which update these figures to 2009, and chart the rise and fall of ICA in the first decade of the new millennium.
Read the rest over at Family Helper.
Peter Selman (Mar. 15, 2011)
Year after year, the numbers are falling. International adoptions peaked in 2004 at over 45,000 and fell to about 30,000 in 2009, a decrease of one-third in six years.
The current decline looks set to continue in 2010 and onward, Dr. Peter Selman of Britain's Newcastle University told Family Helper (www.familyhelper.net).
Dr. Selman is an authority on international adoption statistics. His new survey of intercountry adoption in the 21st century will appear as a chapter in Intercountry Adoption: Policies, Practices and Outcomes, edited by Judith Gibbons and Karen Rotabi (Ashgate 2011, forthcoming).
International adoption is complex: in 2009 around 30,000 children left their birth country and moved to a new country often thousands of miles away. China still leads as a source country, sending about 5,000 children to adoptive homes abroad in 2009 (see Table 1 below). U.S. families adopted the most children from other countries: 12,753 in fiscal year 2009 (see Table 2 below).
For decades, until 2004, the numbers had gone steadily upward. In his article "The rise and fall of intercountry adoption in the 21st century" (pdf), (International Social Work, September 2009), Dr. Selman charted how intercountry adoption (ICA) developed over ten years—1998 to 2007—in 22 countries.
He found remarkable changes. Ever since the first children left South Korea in 1953 the numbers rose yearly, to over 45,000 worldwide in 2004. But although the number of applicants in receiving countries kept growing, the global number of adoptions started falling: by 17% between 2004 and 2007.
Dr. Selman sent Family Helper the following tables and graphs, which update these figures to 2009, and chart the rise and fall of ICA in the first decade of the new millennium.
Read the rest over at Family Helper.