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
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