Adoptions From Foster Care in 2019

As nation­al atten­tion turns to the impor­tance of pro­vid­ing per­ma­nent, lov­ing adop­tive fam­i­lies for fos­ter chil­dren and youth who can­not return to their fam­i­lies, the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter pro­vides the lat­est sta­tis­tics about this vul­ner­a­ble population.

Stats on Kids Wait­ing to Be Adopted

In 2019, 122,637 chil­dren were wait­ing in fos­ter care for adop­tion in the Unit­ed States. Among sev­er­al pos­i­tive trends, the share of kids wait­ing 5 years or more to be adopt­ed is down — one in 10 kids had been wait­ing 5 or more years to be adopt­ed in 2019, a drop from about one in four in the ear­ly 2000s. In 2019, a third of kids had been wait­ing 1 to 2 years and, in less pos­i­tive news, near­ly half (45%) had been wait­ing 2 to 4 years.

Addi­tion­al sta­tis­tics on chil­dren await­ing adop­tions in 2019:

• 30% were in Cal­i­for­nia, Texas and Flori­da, con­sis­tent with pri­or years.
• 40% were ages 1 to 5, the largest share, and 4% were infants, fig­ures that have been sta­ble for a decade. Among old­er kids, just over a quar­ter were ages 6 to 10, while just under a quar­ter were 11 to 15, and old­er youth 16 to 20 have made up 7% for years.
• Trends by race and eth­nic­i­ty also have been steady in recent years, with white chil­dren mak­ing up 44% of this group, Lati­no and African Amer­i­can chil­dren each com­pris­ing about one fifth (22%), fol­lowed by mul­ti­ple race groups (8%), Amer­i­can Indi­an chil­dren (2%) and Asian/​Native Hawai­ian kids (1%).

At the nation­al lev­el, African Amer­i­can and Amer­i­can Indi­an chil­dren con­tin­ue to be over­rep­re­sent­ed among chil­dren await­ing adoption—and chil­dren in fos­ter care, generally—compared to their share of the total child population.

Stats on Kids in Child Wel­fare Who Get Adopted

In 2019, one in four (26%) chil­dren who left fos­ter care in the Unit­ed States was adopt­ed by a fam­i­ly, up from 17% in 2000. The per­cent­age of chil­dren who were placed with fam­i­ly (adop­tive fam­i­ly or parent/​family mem­ber) remained fair­ly steady, declin­ing slight­ly from 84% in 2000 to 79% in 2019.

In a broad­er mea­sure* of adop­tions, just over 66,000 chil­dren and youth in the child wel­fare sys­tem were adopt­ed in 2019, a con­sid­er­able increase from about 50,600 in 2013.

Oth­er find­ings about chil­dren who were adopt­ed from the child wel­fare system:

• In pat­terns essen­tial­ly unchanged for a decade, the major­i­ty (56% in 2019) of these adoptees are from birth to age 5, about one in four is age 6 to 10, one in sev­en is 11 to 15 and 3% are old­er youth ages 16 to 20.
• Over the last two decades, white kids have com­prised a grow­ing share of adopt­ed chil­dren — from 38% in 2000 to 50% in 2019—while the share for African Amer­i­can chil­dren has decreased from 38% to 18%. Per­cent­ages for Lati­no kids also grew from 15% to 21%, and the share for mul­ti­ple race groups increased from 2% to 9% in 2019, while shares for oth­er groups remained much small­er and stable.
• In the last five years, more than two-thirds (69% in 2019) of these adop­tions have been by the fos­ter par­ents (either rel­a­tives or non­rel­a­tives) who cared for the chil­dren while they were in fos­ter care. And, in a heart­en­ing trend, the share of kids adopt­ed by rel­a­tives dou­bled from 18% to 36% between 2000 and 2019.

Adop­tions Sta­tis­tics in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, Includ­ing Data by State and Territory

• Chil­dren wait­ing for adoption
• by amount of time waiting
• by age group
• by race and ethnicity
• Chil­dren exit­ing fos­ter care to adop­tions and oth­er reasons
• Chil­dren in the child wel­fare sys­tem who have been adopted
• by age group
• by pre-adop­tive rela­tion­ship with adop­tive parents
• by race and ethnicity

More Data and Resources on Adop­tions and Fos­ter Care

See all reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed sta­tis­tics on adop­tions, fos­ter care and more in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, and explore the Foundation’s many pub­li­ca­tions, blog posts, webi­na­rs and oth­er resources relat­ed to child wel­fare and adop­tions, includ­ing:

• Blog post: Help­ing Men­tal Health Clin­i­cians Bet­ter Sup­port Adop­tive Families
• Report: Every Kid Needs a Fam­i­ly: Giv­ing Chil­dren in the Child Wel­fare Sys­tem the Best Chance for Success
• Blog post: A Resource for Strength­en­ing Adop­tive Fam­i­lies with Old­er Kids
• Report: Achiev­ing Per­ma­nen­cy Through Adop­tion: The Per­ma­nen­cy Con­tin­u­um Series

Stay up to date on the lat­est news and infor­ma­tion by sign­ing up for our child wel­fare newslet­ter.

* Note: Chil­dren in the child wel­fare sys­tem who were adopt­ed includes the fol­low­ing broad­er group of adop­tions, includ­ing chil­dren who may not be in fos­ter care:

1. Chil­dren placed for adop­tion by a pub­lic child wel­fare agency;
2. Chil­dren who have been in the pub­lic fos­ter care sys­tem and were placed for adop­tion by a pri­vate agency under con­tract with the pub­lic child wel­fare agency; and
3. Chil­dren in whose adop­tion the pub­lic child wel­fare agency was involved but who had not been in the pub­lic fos­ter care sys­tem (e.g., chil­dren who received Title IV‑E funds for non­re­cur­ring costs of adoption).