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While the number of people wishing to adopt a child in France is increasing, the number of children available for domestic adoption is in decline, since today most births are planned. For this reason, many families now adopt children from other countries. Where do these children come from and who are they? And who are the adopters? A recent INED survey - the first of its kind - sheds light on these questions and, in particular, helps to explain why adoption is more frequent among the more affluent social categories.
The number of people applying to adopt a child in France has almost doubled in the last fifteen years, and now exceeds 10,000 per year. Of this total, 8,000 receive approval (1) while others abandon their project before the procedure is completed or are turned down. Approval remains valid for five years and 25,000 approved potential adopters were waiting for a child in 2003 [1]. This increase in demand has led to the development of international adoption. Of the 4,500 children adopted in France in 2003, almost 4,000 (90%) were born abroad. France ranks second in the world for the number of foreign children adopted, behind the USA which counts over 20,000 per year. In relative terms however, international adoption is less common in France than in certain northern European countries: Norway, Sweden and Denmark count ten to twelve such adoptions per thousand births, compared with five per thousand in France [2].
* Adopted children: wide-ranging origins and profiles
Twenty-five years ago, four-fifths of foreign-born adopted children were from Asia - primarily South Korea - while very few were from Africa or Europe [3]. Today, they come in practically equal numbers from the different continents: 27% are born in Asia, 27% in Africa, 26% in America and 20% in Europe. The top three countries of origin for international adoption in France are currently Haiti, China and Russia. Together they accounted for more than a third of all foreign-born adopted children in 2004.
The children's characteristics vary according to their country of origin, and they are unequally distributed by sex and age. In China, the government's one-child policy, combined with boy preference, means that practically all the children available for adoption are girls: there are...