Dwindling Numbers of Adoptions out of China

The stats for 2006 are now available, and they're not looking good. Here's some stats for the U.S.:

U.S. adoptions from China
2004 7,044
2005 7,906
2006 6,520

And for Canada:
Canadian adoptions from China
2004 1,001
2005 973
2006 608


What this means is that China adopted out about 20% fewer children to Canada and the U.S. in 2006 than it did in 2005. The slowdown isn't just due to increased demand, it's also due to decreased supply. China not only has not increased the number of children referred to meet the demand, they've actually reduced it.

As I've said elsewhere, I believe this is due to Chinese internal politics. An analogous situation in the U.S.A. is immigration. The delay to receive permission to immigrate to the U.S. from some countries is as long as 22 years. This is simply due to a quota on the number of immigrations from those countries. This delay could be eliminated at any time by simply lifting the quota - it would take only a few months to process the 22 year backlog. However, because immigration is a sensitive issue in the U.S., there is currently no prospect of that happening. China's situation is much the same. Adoption is a sensitive issue. China does not want to be perceived as a baby exporter, and all of the articles that have been written about adoption from China are not helping the situation. Apparently they are dealing with this perception by reducing their quotas for international adoption. This has nothing to do with the number of children who need homes in China, nothing to do with how fast the CCAA can process dossiers, and everything to do with political considerations.

If the quota reductions continue - and the numbers so far in 2007 are not promising - and the number of dossiers submitted to China continues at the same high level, wait times will go extremely high. I cannot stress this enough: if you have not already submitted your dossier to China, please choose a different route to adopt. You will thank me later, when you have a child in only a year or two vs. a five-year wait or longer for China. If you have only recently submitted your dossier, I think you should also consider switching. Domestic, private, or international adoption from another country are all likely to be much faster than continuing with China.

China Adoption Forecast