Men adopt twice as often as women. Gay couples may contribute to substantial difference
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] – offers a new report which indicates men are twice as likely as women to adopt a child.
Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth shows men aged 18-44 years are more than twice as likely as women of the same age group to have adopted a child. As of 2002, more than 1.2 million men and 613,000 women had adopted children.
Kim M. Hober, LMSW, an obstetric social worker at New York’s University of Rochester Medical Center provides one explanation:
“We’ve seen an increase in same-sex couples adopting, and this is a trend all over the country,” Hober tells WebMD. “If you think about same-sex couples, gay men who want children really have to adopt, but gay women can have their own children. I don’t see as many gay female couples adopting as gay male couples.”
Other discoveries from the latest survey:
- Americans adopt more than 50,000 foster-care children each year
- Approximately 100,000 never-married women and 73,000 never-married men had adopted a child
- The number of international adoptions nearly tripled from 7,093 in 1990 to 19,237 in 2002
- There are between 118,000 and 127,000 adoptions each year in the U.S. As of 2000, 65.6 million children under age 18 – about 2.5% of U.S. kids – are adopted
Image: proudtobedad
the actual report, which can be found online (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_027.pdf), mentions nothing about gays, lesbians or same-sex couples. The only remote reference is that never-married men are adopting. Yet, WebMD does state some specifics regarding lesbians and gays (http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20080807/men-adopt-twice-as-often-as-women). Hmmm.
When reading the report’s discussion of results, the authors state, “More men than women have adopted children in their lifetimes. Among adopters, 17% of women and 6% of men were never married.” The first statement was actually attributed mostly to men who adopted their spouses children. The second statement specifically refers to “never”-married men and “never”-married women. While I would like to think this number characterizes those who are gay, we cannot assume this to be true. There is nothing in the report to substantiate this assumption.
Sorry…