The mean length of time that these children have been in foster care is 46 months. Children in foster care tend to wait for long periods of time for adoptive families. According to one study, children wait for adoption, on average, between 3.5 and 5.5 years. It is primarily younger children who are adopted from foster care. As children age, they are less likely to be adopted.
Adoptions tend to be more stable when a child in foster care is adopted at a younger age.
There is no definitive source of information on the number of transracial adoptions of children in foster care. It is estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 children are adopted each year worldwide. The number of children adopted by US families from other countries has grown each year, with few exceptions. We do not know how many children from the United States are adopted each year by families who are citizens of other countries. The US Immigration and Naturalization Service does not maintain statistics on US children who leave the US for adoption by citizens of other countries.