Pound Pup Legacy

Yesterday I came across an article called Operation Zip Code, which revolved around the theme: where you live determines the quality of your health care. It mentions several of the medical practice hot-spots, where people are several times more likely to receive for example knee surgery than on average or where the hospitalization rates are much higher than in the rest of the country.

When I read the article I thought how that applies to child placement too. Unfortunately there aren't that many statistics maintained on child placement. So we have to do with little that we have.

In 2000 the US census, for the first time, asked about adoptive status. A true hot-spot based upon that data is Alaska, where 3.9% of the children under 18 in a household are adopted, compared to Puerto Rico, where that number is only 1.1%. The census also asked about step children and here the popularizing effect of former president  Clinton for that theme has worked, because Arkansas takes the lead with 8.5% of the children in a household being stepchildren. The lowest figure can be found in the District of Columbia, where this number is 2.1%. In general the percentage of stepchildren in a household is much higher in the South than anywhere else, with the North East having the lowest figures.

Another source of information is the Administration for Children & Family of the US Department of Health and Human Services, which maintain statistics about public agency adoption in the US. Here the District of Columbia clearly takes the lead, with Hawaii as a close runner up, while Puerto Rico and Maryland close the list.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway has all sorts of information about adoption and foster care, including lists of licensed agencies per state. Though the information is not all that accurate, the number one position of Pennsylvania, remains undisputed even after further perusal. With 206 agencies, Pennsylvania has by far the largest number of private adoption agencies in the USA. Especially in and around Philadelphia is a real concentration of agencies an influence that is even noticeable on the other side of the Delaware, where quite some agencies seem to like Cherry Hill, New Jersey as their domicile.

When we look abroad, Sweden stands out as the country with the most adoptions per capita and Guatemala stands out as the country where most children per capita get adopted from. That position might soon be taken over by Ethiopia, where the adoption market is soaring, while Guatemalan adoption is now quickly declining. China maintains the biggest export country in absolute numbers.

Unlike the article this comparison is loosely inspired by, I have little information about the reasons behind these figures. The high number of agencies in Pennsylvania can be explained by very lax regulations for incorporating agencies, but as of yet I have to hear a rational behind the high number of adoptions in Alaska.

Hot-spots come and go. I already hinted at the position of Guatemala, but also in the US things change constantly. Little over twenty years ago, US congress was so worried about the situation in baby broker business in South Carolina, there was even a congressional hearing about it. At the time articles South Carolina's Booming Baby Business made the headlines, while nowadays no-one talks about the Palmetto State anymore.