Adoptions in Australia 2011-12
When a child is unable to live with their birth family, adoption can provide a permanent home and family. When an adoption occurs, rights and responsibilities for the child are transferred from the birth parents to the adoptive parents, and the legal rights of the adopted child become the same as they would be if the child had been born to the adoptive parents.
This publication presents the latest statistics and related information on most aspects of adoptions in Australia, including characteristics of adopted children, adoptive families and birth mothers. For the first time, the report also contains information on processing times for intercountry adoptions.
What are the different types of adoptions?
Intercountry adoptions involve children from countries other than Australia, who are legally able to be placed for adoption, but who generally have had no previous contact with the adoptive parents.
Local adoptions involve children who were born or permanently living in Australia before the adoption, who are legally able to be placed for adoption, but who generally have had no previous contact or relationship with the adoptive parents.
Known adoptions are similar to local adoptions, but involve children who have a pre-existing relationship with the adoptive parent(s) and who are generally not able to be adopted by anyone other than the adoptive parent(s). A known child adoption could involve, for example, a step-parent or foster parent.
Falling numbers
There were 333 finalised adoptions in Australia in 2011–12, which was the lowest annual number on record.
‘For the first time since 1998–99, we saw more Australian children adopted than children from overseas—184 from Australia and 149 from overseas’, said Mr Tim Beard, Head of the AIHW’s Child Welfare and Prisoner Health Unit.
While the long-term fall in adoptions overall is primarily due to continuing falls in the number of Australian children adopted (an 84% decline from 1987–88 to 2011–12), the number of intercountry adoptions has also been falling in recent years.
The 2011–12 figure of 149 overseas adoptions continued a 7-year pattern of decline.
A changing society
A range of factors may be responsible for the falling number of adoptions in Australia.
‘In part, the long-term decline can be attributed to legislative changes, such as what are called “alternative legal orders” that transfer guardianship and custody of a child to a person other than the parent—usually a relative or carer with whom the child is already living’, Mr Beard said. These often replace the need for adoption.
‘In Victoria, for example, these orders are called permanent care orders. In some other States and Territories they are known as guardianship orders to a third party.’
Broader social trends and changing community attitudes have also affected adoption numbers. For example, over the last few decades, there has been increasing social acceptance of raising children outside registered marriage, with increased levels of support available to single parents.
Other changes, such as declining fertility rates, wider availability of effective birth control methods and the emergence of family planning centres, are also thought to have contributed to the drop in the number of children available for adoption in Australia.
‘For intercountry adoptions, numbers have been falling largely due to economic, legislative and social changes that allow children to remain with their birth families or be adopted within their home country’, Mr Beard said.
Characteristics of the children
Most children adopted from overseas in 2011–12 (79%) were aged under 5, and 23% were infants aged under 12 months. In previous years the proportion of finalised adoptions involving infants was higher, reaching a peak of 47% of intercountry adoptions in 2005–06.
The majority of intercountry adoptions in 2011–12 involved only one child, although 18 children were adopted at the same time as at least some of their siblings, by the same adoptive family in each particular case.
Boys and girls were adopted from overseas in roughly equal proportions—52% and 48% respectively. Most intercountry adoptions (86%) involved children from Asia, with a further 12% involving children from Africa, and 2% from South/ Central America.
The most common countries of origin were the Philippines (29 adoptions, or 19% of the total), South Korea (26 adoptions, 17%), China (24 adoptions, 16%) and Taiwan (22 adoptions, 15%).For local adoptions, almost all (96%) involved children aged under 5, and absolutely all children were under 10.
‘Locally adopted children tend to be younger than those adopted from other countries’, Mr Beard said.
‘In 2011–12, 36% of local adoptions involved infants aged under 12 months, compared with 23% for intercountry adoptions.’
‘Among local adoptions, all were for single children except for one case where two siblings were adopted at the same time by the same family’, Mr Beard said.
For known child adoptions, the children tend to be much older. Half of the known child adoptions finalised in 2011–12 (53%) were for children aged 10 and over, and only 16% involved children under 5.
‘This reflects legal requirements applying to the age of known children, and the length of time the prospective parent or parents need to have had a relationship with that child. The additional time often involved in the forming of step-families is also likely to contribute’, Mr Beard said.
What do we know about the birth parents?
Limited statistical information is available on the families of children adopted from overseas, but some information is available about the birth mothers of children adopted in Australia.
‘Australian birth mothers of children who had their local adoptions finalised in 2011–12 tended to be younger than other mothers, with a median age of 22—nine years less than the median age of all mothers’, Mr Beard said.
Most locally-adopted children (78%) had birth mothers aged under 30, and 62% had birth mothers aged under 25.
Most birth mothers (85%) were not in a registered marriage.
Almost all local adoptions finalised in 2011–12 (95%) were ‘open’, in that all parties were happy to allow a degree of contact or information exchange to occur between birth and adoptive families.
What about the adoptive families?
Adoptive parents tend to be older than biological parents due largely to eligibility requirements. More than two-thirds (70%) of intercountry adoptive parents were aged 40 and over in 2011–12. For local adoptions, 39% of adoptive parents were aged 40 and over.
Nearly all adoptive parents were in a registered marriage for both intercountry and local adoptions—92% and 95% respectively.
More than one-third (36%) of families who adopted a child from overseas had no other children in their families. Coincidentally, 36% of adoptive families had other adopted children only. About 19% had other biological children, and 9% had both biological and adopted children.
For local adoptions, most children were adopted into families with no other children (61% of cases). One-quarter (25%) of the adoptive families had adopted children only, and a further 11% had biological children only. About 3% had both.
How long does it take to adopt a child from overseas?
‘This year, for the first time, we have been able to report on processing times for intercountry adoptions’, Mr Beard said.
‘This allows us to give a more complete picture of the intercountry adoption process, which in Australia is administered by the Commonwealth Attorney- General’s Department.’
For children placed with their adoptive parents in 2011–12, the median length of time from when an Australian applicant, that is the adoptive parent(s), became an official client of the department to when a child was placed with them, was 56 months. The range was from a median of 32 months for a child from Taiwan to 79 months for a child from China.
The overall median length of time from approval of an applicant in Australia to placement of a child has risen steadily in the last few years, from 37 months in 2007– 08 to the 56 months in 2011–12 mentioned earlier.
‘The longest period in the process, for most countries, occurs between receipt of an applicant’s file in the intended country and the date a child is allocated’, Mr Beard explained.
‘The main exceptions are Taiwan, where the initial approval of an applicant was the longest part of the process, and South Korea where the time between allocation and placement was longest.’
The time taken by countries of origin to allocate children after receiving files from Australia rose from a median of 19 months in 2007– 08 to 30 months in 2011–12.
Download Adoptions in Australia 2011–12 at <http://bit.ly/CWS042>.
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