U.S. Adoptions From Abroad Are Declining

The number of children adopted from abroad is declining in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. Where more than 12,700 children were adopted internationally in 2009, that figure has dropped to under 1,300 in 2023.

This is due to several reasons. For example, although the U.S. signed the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 1994, it wasn’t until 2008 that it came fully into effect there. Designed to ensure more ethical intercountry adoptions and to prevent the abduction, sale of, or trafficking in children, the Convention requires proof that each given child has been deemed eligible for adoption by the child's country of origin and that due consideration has been given to finding an adoption placement for the child in its country of origin. Each adoption agency must also be accredited or approved on a Federal level. According to Adoption.com, while the Hague Convention is beneficial it has also led to increased waiting times and fees, with many poorer countries unable to meet standards.

Looking more closely at country specific examples, Guatemala is frequently held up as an example of what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialized and ethics disregarded, with stories of corruption and of children being kidnapped to then be adopted. These findings led Guatemala to placing a moratorium on new intercountry adoptions in 2008 until a Hague-compliant adoption process could be created and implemented. Until that point, Guatemala had been the only country worldwide to allow fully privatized adoptions, and in 2008 accounted for the second largest group of international adoptees after China.

In the last two and a half decades, more children from China have been coming to the U.S. as adoptees. Between 1999 and 2023, they numbered almost 83,000 compared with 46,000 from Russia, 30,000 from Guatemala, 21,500 adoptees from South Korea, 16,000 from Ethiopia and 12,000 from Ukraine. China stopped international adoptions during the pandemic, resuming the practice again in 2023, when 16 children were adopted in the U.S. However, this figure is set to fall to zero once more, following an announcement from Beijing that the country will no longer be facilitating intercountry adoptions unless to blood relatives. The move takes place in a country experiencing a shrinking and aging population with a falling birth rate.

International politics also play a role in the global flows of adoption. This is the case with Russia, which banned adoptions by U.S. parents in 2012 in retaliation to the U.S.’ Magnitsky Act, which had sanctioned Russian officials and nationals for human rights abuses. As the following chart shows, where 1,588 Russian children were adopted in 2009, this fell to 0 in 2015, with no children having been adopted from the country since.