What's New in Adoption?

I subscribed to Adoptive Families magazine. Once I smoothed out all the pages (our postman crumbled it all up in our mailbox), I really enjoyed reading it. There was an interesting article with recent laws, rulings, and study results that affect adoptive families, so I thought I'd share some of the information.

1. Domestic adoptions decreasing
There were 18,078 domestic infant adoptions in 2007 (last National Council for Adoption survey... the next one should be done this year) compared to 22,291 domestic infant adoptions in the previous survey in 2002. One major reason for this is most never-married mothers choose to parent; 9% of never-married mothers made adoption plans in the 1970s whereas less than 1% do now.

2. Change afoot in intercountry adoption
Intercountry adoptions fell 16% in the past year from 11,059 to 9,319. This is a 16 year low. There are multiple reasons for this including policy changes and tightened restrictions in many countries as well as increasing travel times and costs. The top sending countries are China, Ethipoia, Russia, South Korea, and Ukraine. 

3. Foster adoption: on the rise until 2010
There were 52,891 children adopted from the foster care system in 2010 (down from 57,466 the year before). The 2011 numbers are still being calculated, so only time will tell if this area of adoption is also declining, too.

4. Adoption tax credit set to expire
This one is a biggie. The current credit is $12,650 (non-refundable) and helps defray the costs of adoption. If there is no new legislation, starting next year there will be a credit of only $6,000 that is for special needs children only. There is a current act in Congress but there doesn't seem to be a good chance it will be passed. You can advocate here and track the progress and send a letter to your legislator here.

5. Openness in adoption is increasing
There was a major report released in 2012 that says only 5% of adoptions are closed infant adoptions (meaning birth family and adoptive family have no contact with each other), 40% are mediated (meaning birth family and adoptive family stay in contact with each other through a third party such as the adoption agency), and 55% are open (meaning the birth family and adoptive family directly exchange information and have visits to some extent).

Credit to Adoptive Families magazine including contributor Elisa Rosman, Ph.D.