What are the odds in adopting a baby boy from China or a Chinatown?

spydermomma

The chances of adopting a Chinese American child, boy or girl, are extremely low. Chinese Americans have a fairly low birthrate and they almost always keep and raise their kids. Any that are not raised by their parents are generally raised by relatives. (ETA: And they mostly don't live in Chinatowns, either, especially not the ones young enough to be having babies.)

From China the chances are much higher, though girls still make up the large majority of the children adopted from China. In the "traditional" international adoption program, where potential adoptive parents ask to be matched with a healthy child as young as possible, the percentages are about 95% girls and 5% boys. I personally know 2 boys adopted from China under this program, including one in the group that we traveled with. He was a little older--18 months versus 12-14 months for the girls. As far as I can tell, both boys are of normal health.

Then there is the special needs or waiting child (older children over 5 or 6) program. The percentage of boys is a lot higher. I have even heard it is about 50/50. And special needs can be relatively minor and correctable: cleft lip, club foot, missing fingers, etc. Even sometimes a really visible birth mark. I know two families who have been matched with boys and are waiting to travel to China. One boy is only 10 months old and has an extra toe.

Here is an article about adopting boys from China:
http://www.chinesechildren.org/Newsletter%5CWindow%20to%20China/WTC_07_2004.pdf

Here is an interesting article discussing the "imbalance" of boys and girls in China and also international and domestic adoption from/in China:
http://research-china.blogspot.com/2006/10/chinas-boy-imbalance.html

tish

chinatown is considered a "domestic adoption." meaning it's in the US. hence the premise of your question in inplausible because one is looking at international adoption and the other domestic.

i'm not sure what you mean by "odds." that implies that there are boys of chinese decent that are available and that there are a known number of parents who wish to adopt them.

honestly, i'd simply look at the research about chinese adoption (from china) and take it from there. attempting to come up with arbitrary numbers is a bad way to do research or make a claim...

Heather B

The difference is that chinatown doesn't require a license fee for each child you have, so the parents are able to keep their children! So, the odds of adopting from chinatown are very low

Boys are popular in China, many are stolen and sold for adoption - but they are usually sold within China.

Many chinese families just can't afford the license fees for subsequent children, it's not that they don't care - they care very much . . .

EnjoyR3d

The chances are very slim! Not impossible but slim.

There is a group that I think is called Chinaboys2 and they help couples find boys from china to adopt.

Stony Stoned

I think that will be alittle hard to track, even though boys are favored in some cultures more then others the fact stands that once in the adoption system they are kind of stripped of where they come from, unless they are old enough to remember the city they were born in, in which case they were probably adopted out do to family death, not just "Your a chick" as the same cultures also believe that family is a bond that can't be broken.
Its kind of like "How much do bears **** in the woods?" the answer would be "alot" but if you wanted to know how many pounds it actually was you'd be having to do alot of independent research, same with this, the only way you'd actually know is to go adopt a kid from chinatown and see how hard it is, or else it will be all theory.
and in theory I'd say 1 in a gazillion ;)
Hope that helps

Crucio

The odds would not be high and if you are wanting to adopting a boy from China the odds are also high that boy will have some sort of health issues or be an older child. Here is a link where a man tells a little bit about how he has adopted two boys. Also note their 2nd adopted son was at least 3 years old when they adopted possible 4. So there are boys from china who need to be adopted but again often their older then a baby. Most times someone who adopts a baby from china that child is generally at least 15 to 18 months old.

http://www.childrenshomeadopt.org/5Apr2007.html

This is the agency that he went through
http://www.childrenshomeadopt.org/International_Adoption.html

This is article from 4 years ago about Americans who have adopted from China
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4588066/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chinaboys2/

Mei-Ling

Highly unlikely.

Most boys come with special needs and medical costs.

The dominant gender preference in China/Taiwan is still... unfortunately... male.

Roberta P

The odds of adopting a boy from China as the same as a girl, IF you are open to special needs. These needs can be either medical or just being over the age of 6. If you want a non-special needs boy, the odds are just about zero. Those children are adopted by the Chinese within days of being brought to the orphanage.

anastasia beaverhausen-the real1

chinatown, as in nyc? yeah, that doesn't count.

in china- they don't part with the boys. they just couldn't care less about the girls.

monkeykitty83

These are two different questions.

From China? Possible but unlikely. Around 90% of the total number of children (of all ages, including those with special needs) who are adopted from China are female. That means, of course, around 10% are boys. Things get a little more complicated, though, if you specify babies. Only 44% of the total children adopted are under the age of one year. So your chances of adopting a baby boy, assuming you qualified to adopt in the first place, and China has extremely strict rules, would be around 4.4%. (I did that piece of math assuming that the gender rate was the same among infants as among total children, so that may be off if for some reason the infant numbers are different.) So possible, sure. But not likely at less than 5%-- though clearly some people do adopt boys from China.

From China Town... gosh, there's no real way to predict that. You would have to go through either foster care or a private adoption agency and specify you were only open to the racial preference of Asian-- but there are lots of Asians who aren't Chinese, and not all Chinese people or people of Chinese descent live in China Town. I'd say the odds of the child you adopted happening to be from China Town would be fairly low... and when you factor in "boy" and "infant," become astronomical. I would say it's all but impossible, and there's no real way you could make it happen on purpose.

Good luck with your school project.

Supermommy!!!

It's not impossible but it's harder. I knew a couple who adopted a girl and they went with a group of 20 couples only one got a boy. The second time it was only girls no boys. I was also told they screen more for the boys and you have to do more stuff. As far as Chinatown goes I don't think they have their own adoption agency. It would more than likely be a county or city agency not just one for Chinatown.
The other poster was right about the age thing. Any child that is adopted from China has to be at least 1 year old. It is harder to adopt a child with a disability. I know a family that adopted 4 girls and it took them a long time.

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