II. Are There Lots of Babies to Adopt?, Page 3

Some Adoption Statistics

In the late 1960s about 25,000 children a year were being adopted, of whom half were under a year old. In 1975 there were 21,299 adoptions in England and Wales. By 1996 this had dropped to 5,962. Of the children adopted in 1975, 21% were under a year old; in 1996 only 4% were that young. In 1975, 19% of children adopted were over nine years old; in 1996 that figure had risen to 30%. In 1996 there were only 238 babies adopted in the whole of England and Wales: slightly more than one every working day. And these figures include children adopted within their extended birth families and by step-parents. The number of adoptions by strangers is even lower.

Figures from the Social Services Inspectorate of England and Wales for 1996-97 state that about 1,900 children were adopted from care (i.e., excluding adoptions by step-parents and other adoptions into the birth family where the children had not been taken into care), of which only 140 were under a year old. One thousand of the children were between one and four, 810 were between five and nine, and 320 were aged 10 or older. So the number of adoptions of babies from care by strangers in 1996-97 was less than three a week in the whole of England and Wales, and the total number of adoptions by strangers, including all ages of children, was under 37 a week. In 1998-99 about 2,900 children were placed for adoptions of all kinds.

Figures for the year 2000-2001 from the Department of Health show 3,067 adoptions from care during that year, continuing a new, upward, trend in placements. Of these children, a little over 67% were aged under five and 5% were aged 10 or older.

A somewhat different figure is the number of children being looked after by social services departments (i.e., in care), for whom adoption is the agreed plan. These are the children available for adoption. The total number of these children in England and Wales as of 31 March 1999 was 5,660, and the figure was expected to rise to 6,620 by 31 March 2000.

Finally, figures from Community Care, 10-16 August 2000, page 20, show that about 52,000 children are being looked after by local authorities at any one time, of whom 70% will return to their families. Adoptions from care (that is, excluding step-parent adoptions and other adoptions of children not in care) have been stable at abut 2,000 per year for the past 30 years.

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