Pandemic Reversed U.S. Domestic Adoption Trends

The number of children entering foster care, awaiting adoption from foster care and being adopted from the U.S. public childcare system has decreased with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic - as schools closed and access to services slowed, but also fewer people signed up to be foster parents. As of the fiscal year of 2022, that had not changed despite the fact that most Covid-19 regulations had been lifted by then.

While in 2019, 124,000 U.S. children were awaiting adoption domestically, this was down to 109,000 in 2022, reversing a previous upward trend. The trend of children actually adopted in the U.S. followed a similar pattern and fell from 66,200 in 2019 to 53,700 in 2022 after having previously risen. Fewer children are adopted from foster care than are eligible for adoption from it as older children, even a couple of years old, that enter the system are harder to find adoptive parents for.

The National Council for Adoption estimates that private adoptions - often by relatives or stepparents - about match the number of public adoptions in the United States. Overseas adoptions play a smaller role and have been falling in numbers even before the onset of the pandemic as many countries that used to allow children to be sent overseas for adoptions have favored the practice less - for example South Korea or China.