Intercountry Adoption Flows from Africa to the U.S.: A Fifth Wave of Intercountry Adoptions?

Abstract

This article addresses whether there is the beginning of a fifth wave of intercountry adoptions (ICAs) from Africa to the United States (U.S.). ICAs function as a “quiet migration” of children [Weil (1984)International Migration Review 18(2):276–293; Lovelock (2000)International Migration Review 34 (3):907–949; Selman (2002)Population Research and Policy Review 21:205–225]. U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) data from 1971 to 2009 indicate that there were 421,085 ICAs to the U.S. Tarmann (2003:2, http://dx.doi.org/http://www.prb.org/Articles/2003/InternationalAdoptionRateinUSDoubledinthe1990s.aspx?p=1) reported that in 2000, U.S. parents completed one ICA for every 200 births. In the past, top sending countries have followed flows from Europe, South America, and Asia. INS data are used to analyze the increase in the intercountry adoptees from Africa from 1996 to 2009. Similar Hague Convention data are used for the comparison of the number of ICAs from Africa to other top recipient nations. Demographic and economic data are used to support the suggestion that ICAs, similar to other migratory flows, are from developing to developed countries.

The Quiet Migration Redux: International Adoption, Race, and Difference

“…The analogy continues, and recently the demographer Mary Ann Davis (2011:784–785) has described international adoptions as “similar to other migratory flows” in that they “have generally conformed to trends of originating from specific global regions and international push and pull factors as well as the availability of domestic adoptees.”…”

“…War and violence, economic or political instability, population policy, son preference, and AIDS have all served as “push factors” (Davis 2011). xii In equilibrium-theory approaches to migration, the same kinds of push factors motivate people to leave “sending countries.” Migrants relocate because of social, economic, or political challenges they face in their home countries.…”

“…As Lovelock (2000:910) puts it, international adoption “is instigated and achieved by individuals who are motivated by individual concerns and needs…within a particular domestic/international/political context.” By context she refers to the fact that this demand is not being met by sources that previously responded to it. Those once-productive sources include fertility (receiving countries typically have low fertility rates), xiv domestic adoption (in countries where this is an option it is often seen as undesirable for complicated reasons addressed by Gailey 2010 among others), or formerly-productive international sending countries for adoption (Davis 2011; see also Selman 2002). But Davis also perceptively notes that this pull is more complicated than bare demand for a child.…”

“…But Davis also perceptively notes that this pull is more complicated than bare demand for a child. There is also an existing infrastructure of agencies that, as she puts it, “have financial incentives as mediators of [inter-country adoptions] and are heavily invested in obtaining children for adoptive placement” (Davis 2011:804) as well as a certain level of social acceptance that means international adoption is not proscribed.…”

“…Reading a bit more closely, however, it becomes clear that while demographic scholarship on international adoption calls it migration, it also consistently qualifies that migration in some way: “the unknown immigration” (Lozano and Kossoudji 2009), or the “quiet migration” (Davis 2011; McGuinness 2000; Selman 2002; Weil 1984). Indeed, as qualitative research has shown, many of those involved with adoption explicitly reject the label of immigration.…”