Numbers 

and trends

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

Administration on Children, Youth and Families

Children’s Bureau

Child Welfare Information Gateway

Children’s Bureau/ACYF

1250 Maryland Avenue, SW

Eighth Floor

Washington, DC 20024

703.385.7565 or 800.394.3366

Email: info@childwelfare.gov

www.childwelfare.gov

Most Americans favor adoption, and many have at some point 

considered adoption. However, relatively few have taken concrete steps toward adopting a child, and fewer still have actually adopted a child. This factsheet examines some of the more 

recent statistics and trends regarding American adults who seek 

to adopt an infant or child.

Over one-third of Americans have ever considered adopting (Harris Interactive, Inc., 2002; Princeton Survey Research 

	 A 1997 study from Princeton Survey Research Associates concluded that 90 percent of

Americans have a favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of adoption, while a 2002 poll

by Harris Interactive, Inc., found that 94 percent of adults have a favorable or somewhat

favorable attitude toward adoption.

How Many

People Are

Seeking to

Adopt?

How Many

People Are

Seeking to

Adopt?

Persons Seeking

to Adopt

March 2005
Persons Seeking to Adopt www.childwelfare.gov

 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm.

Associates, 1997), but no more than 2 percent of Americans have 

actually adopted (Mosher & Bachrach, 1996). Somewhere between 

those percentages lies the number of people seeking to adopt—

that is, those who have taken concrete steps to adopt a child.

Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) 

included responses of more than 10,000 women who were interviewed about topics that included adoption. Analysis of the data 

led researchers to the following conclusions (Chandra, Abma, 

Maza, & Bachrach, 1999): 

In 1995 there were nearly 10 million ever-married American 

women ages 18 to 44 who had ever considered adoption, 

and this number amounted to more than one-fourth (26.4 

percent) of all ever-married women. 

About 16 percent of those who had considered adoption (4 

percent of the total of ever-married women), or 1.6 million 

women, had ever taken concrete steps toward adoption; this 

percentage may represent those seeking to adopt.

Only 31 percent of those who had taken concrete steps (1.3 

percent of the total of ever-married women), or 487,000 

women, had ever completed an adoption.

The graph below uses the responses of women in the NSFG to 

show the breakdown from those who considered adoption to 

those who took concrete steps to those who actually adopted.

Figure 1

Percent of women ever married, age 18-44 

(Source: Chandra et al., 1999 )

26% Ever considered adoption

4% Ever took concrete steps toward 

adoption

1.3% Ever completed an adoption

Total adoptions in the United States remained stable at about 127,000 for the period

1992-2001 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2004).

•

•

•
Persons Seeking to Adopt www.childwelfare.gov

 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm.

The 1995 NSFG also reported on the characteristics of the 

ever-married women ages 18 to 44. Having considered adoption, having taken steps toward adoption, and having actually 

adopted were more common among women who were older, 

who had never had children, who had some fertility impairment, and who had ever used fertility services (Chandra et al.,

1999). The study also showed that the prevalence of adoption 

increased with age, education, and income.

The characteristics of those who actually adopted also varied 

according to whether they adopted an unrelated child or a 

related child. The NSFG showed that adoption of an unrelated 

child was most common among childless women, those with fertility impairments, White women, and those with higher levels of 

income and education. The adoption of a related child was more 

common among Black families and families with low incomes 

and low levels of education (Mosher & Bachrach, 1996).

The Harris survey of over 1,400 Americans found that the 

highest percentages of Americans who had considered adopting a child were those ages 35 to 54, married, and female (Harris 

Interactive, 2002). In contrast to the NSFG findings, Harris found 

that income and education were not factors in whether someone 

had considered adopting. The greatest difference between populations was between Hispanic and non-Hispanic respondents: 

Hispanic populations had a far greater likelihood of considering 

adoption than African-American or White populations. 

All of these studies found a significant discrepancy in percentages between those who have considered adoption and those 

who actually adopted. The NSFG study also showed a discrepancy in percentages between those who took steps to adopt 

and those who actually adopted. The reasons for these discrepancies may be attributed, at least in part, to the types of children 

that prospective adoptive parents are seeking. While there are 

more than 118,000 children in public foster care awaiting adoption (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2005), 

potential adoptive parents are not always seeking to adopt from 

the foster care system.

	 The NSFG study conducted in 1995 was the first time during the four studies

conducted since 1973 that the study’s researchers gathered information about

preferences regarding the child to be adopted (Chandra et al., 1999).

Who Are the

People Seeking

to Adopt?

Who Are the

People Seeking

to Adopt?

Why Don’t

All Adoption

Seekers Adopt?

Why Don’t

All Adoption

Seekers Adopt?
Persons Seeking to Adopt www.childwelfare.gov

 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm.

The 2002 Harris survey focused on this question. Public foster 

care includes a disproportionate number of children of color 

and many older children, as well children in sibling groups and 

children who have experiences of neglect or abuse. Those 

polled in the Harris survey indicated they would be more willing 

to adopt older children and children of different races. However, 

they expressed concern about adopting children with health 

or behavioral problems. Additional concerns unrelated to the 

child’s characteristics included whether the birth parents would 

try to regain custody and whether the costs of the adoption 

would be affordable.

Several trends were observed by Chandra et al. (1999) from the 

1995 NSFG data:

The percent of ever-married women who had ever adopted 

declined from 2.1 percent in 1973 to 1.3 percent in 1995.

At the same time that fewer women had ever adopted a 

child, an increasing proportion of those women had adopted 

stepchildren and children of relatives. 

The demand for adoption appears to have remained stable 

over time. In 1988, NSFG reported that 204,000 were currently taking steps to adopt; in 1995 the number was 232,000. 

In 1988, 31 percent of those who had ever sought to adopt 

had actually adopted a child; in 1995, the figure was also 31 

percent.

Adoption and adoption seeking were more prevalent among 

women who had never had children and women who had 

some fertility impairment, but there were many women 

without those characteristics who were seeking to adopt. 

The researchers conclude that the relationship between 

demand for adoption and infertility may be weakening, partly 

as a result of the increase in adoption of related children or 

stepchildren. 

•

•

•

•

What Are

Some Trends

in Adoption

Seeking?

What Are

Some Trends

in Adoption

Seeking?
Persons Seeking to Adopt www.childwelfare.gov

 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm.

A number of questions remain to be answered about those who 

seek to adopt. Some possibilities for future research include:

Current statistics on who seeks to adopt for both men and 

women

More information on what keeps people who are considering 

adoption from taking concrete steps toward adoption

Exploration of whether different ethnic/racial/socioeconomic 

groups adopt for different reasons or adopt different types of 

children

Chandra, A., Abma, J., Maza, P., & Bachrach, C. (1999). 

Adoption, adoption seeking, and relinquishment for adoption 

in the United States. Advance Data (No. 306) from Vital 

and Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention, National center for Health Statistics, U.S. 

Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved 

February 16, 2005, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/

ad306.pdf

This publication includes data from the National Surveys 

of Family Growth through 1995, using data on nationally 

representative samples of over 10,000 women. Data from 

2002 (Cycle 6) have not yet been analyzed.

Harris Interactive, Inc. (2002). National Adoption Attitudes 

Survey. Retrieved February 16, 2005, from the Evan 

B. Donaldson Adoption Institute website: http://www.

adoptioninstitute.org/survey/Adoption_Attitudes_Survey.pdf

This survey was commissioned by the Evan B. Donaldson 

Adoption Institute and the Dave Thomas Foundation for 

Adoption to examine attitudes on adoption from over 1,400 

men and women, focusing on attitudes toward adoption from 

foster care.

Mosher, W. D. & Bachrach, C. A. (1996). Understanding U.S. 

fertility: Continuity and change in the National Survey of 

Family Growth, 1988-1995. Family Planning Perspectives, 

28(1). Retrieved February 16, 2005, from http://www.agi-usa.

org/pubs/journals/2800496.html

This article contains a short section on adoption information 

as found in the data from the National Surveys on Family 

Growth.

•

•

•

Future Research

References
Persons Seeking to Adopt www.childwelfare.gov

 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_seek.cfm.

Princeton Survey Research Associates. (1997). Benchmark 

adoption survey: Report on the findings. Washington, 

DC: Author. Retrieved February 16, 2005, from the Evan 

B. Donaldson Adoption Institute website: http://www.

adoptioninstitute.org/survey/Benchmark_Survey_1997.pdf

This survey, commissioned by the Evan B. Donaldson 

Adoption Institute, consisted of telephone interviews with 

over 1,500 men and women regarding their attitudes toward 

and experiences with adoption.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2004). How 

many children were adopted in 2000 and 2001? Washington, 

DC: Child Welfare Information Gateway. Retrieved February 

15, 2005, from www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_adopted/index.

cfm

This report provides statistics on adoptions in the United 

States through 2001.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2005). National 

adoption and foster care statistics. Data from the Adoption 

and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. Retrieved 

February 16, 2005, from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/

cb/stats_research/index.htm#afcars

This web page links to statistics on children in foster care.