Last August we took a look at the orphanage submissions for the first six months of 2008, and concluded that "waiting families should not expect any appreciable speed-up in referrals." In fact, the wait time has since increased from 30 months in August 2008 to the current 40 months in 2009.
An analysis of orphanage submissions from the nineteen largest Provinces participating in the international adoption program shows that the supply-side of the equation is not going to change in the foreseeable future. While many observers (including myself) believed that the increased adoption donation that took place in January 2009 would increase orphanage submissions, overall this increase has failed to materialize. Of course, analyzing only six-month samples can result in significant swings in data (newspaper print cycles, for example, can create large "bumps" and "valleys" over the short-term, although these even out when one looks at longer data horizons). Generally, however, discernible trends can be seen when comparing January to June 2008 with the same period in 2009.
The table below details the combined submissions of every orphanage in each of the main Provinces involved in International adoption. Overall ten Provinces saw declines, and eight saw increases. Taken together, orphanage submissions fell from 3,971 submissions to 3,922 submissions over the same period in 2009.
While total number of submissions tell one part of the story, another component that is interesting to look at is the gender composition of the children from each Province. Viewed in total, thirteen of the nineteen Provinces submitted a higher percentage of boys in 2009 than they did in 2008. Taken together, the number of boys submitted in 2009 increased 11% from that submitted in 2008 (1,146 vs. 1,271) Guangdong, the largest Province for international adoptions, saw its submissions increase from 193 in 2008 to 306 in 2009, accounting for nearly all of the increase in total male submissions. Guangdong's gender ratio climbed from 25% in 2008 to fully one-third in 2009, one of the highest increases of all the Provinces.
Guangdong Province
In the first six months of 2009, Guangdong orphanages have submitted 937 files to the CCAA, of which 306 (33%) were for boys. This compares to 745 files submitted in the first six months of 2007, which had 111 boys (15%), and 785 files submitted in the first half of 2008, which had 193 boys (25%).
Even with the volatility associated with small samples, three orphanages jump out for having unusually large increases in adoption submissions -- the Zhongshan, Longgang, and Guangzhou orphanages. Collectively, these three orphanages submitted 205 more files in the first six months of 2009 than in the same period of 2008. If one eliminates these three orphanages from the pool of Guangdong orphanages, submissions in 2009 declined 2.5% from 2008 (2,732 files in 2008 verses 2,663 files in 2009). Thus, the entire increase in Guangdong submissions can be tied to these three orphanages. We will look at the largest of these three, the Guangzhou City Orphanage.
Guangzhou
A glance at the submission statistics of the Guangzhou City orphanage from early 2007 through May 2009 reveals some interesting anomalies. Prior to July 2008, the average lot size for international adoption submissions from the orphanage was fourteen children, with the largest submission batch being 30 children in May 2007. Unusually large batches were sent to the CCAA in July 2008, and January and March 2009, when 48, 35 and 35 children were submitted for international adoption.
Additional peculiarities appear when one analyzes the ages of the children submitted. In 2007, the average child submitted for international adoption was under 50 days old when found, with the highest average age for a batch being eight months (246 days) in August 2007. This batch's high average was the result of one six-year old special-need female being submitted. Without her file, the average age would have been 30 days old, in line with the other months. The same exception occurred in August 2007, with one three-year old skewing the average up. Taken broadly, between January and December 2007 only four children over one-year old were submitted for adoption, or 4% of the total (4/100).
Submission characteristics remain fairly constant into 2008. From January through June 2008, the average age at finding remains below 100 days, and no child found over one-year old was submitted.
The pattern changes substantially in July 2008, when forty-eight children were submitted for international in three batches. Not only is the number of batches in one month unusual, but the average age of the children when found jumps to just under one year. In fact, over one quarter of the children in these batches were found over one-year old, with two children being five years old when found.
But the "age when found" jumps even higher in January and March 2009, when two more large batches of children were submitted for international adoption. In January, thirty-five children were submitted for adoption, over a third of whom were found at over a year old. March 2009 saw another peculiar batch, with another thirty-five children being submitted, over 45% of whom had been found over a year old. Interestingly, only seven of the seventy children had been found within the past year, and every one of those seven were over three years old. Taken collectively, the seventy submissions ranged in age from a low of 608 days to thirteen years old when their file was submitted to the CCAA.
Aside from their ages, the health of the majority of the children is good -- only six are listed as having any special needs. The January and March 2009 batches beg the question: In an orphanage that has been conducting international adoptions for over fifteen years, where did the forty-four healthy girls and twenty healthy boys come from?
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One Province stands out for its conspicuous lack of male submissions -- Jiangxi. Jiangxi Province is the only Province with a gender ratio below 10%, meaning that the vast majority of IA submissions are for females (92%). The total number of boys actually fell in 2009, from 66 male files between January and June 2008 to only 56 in the same period of 2009. Given that Jiangxi is the second largest adopting Province in the IA program, this is highly significant.
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Given the number of files submitted by IA orphanages across China, it appears unlikely that any significant speed-up in referral rates will occur in 2010. At the conclusion of 2009 we will look at whether the sharp increases in Shanghai, Guizhou, and Mongolia indicate a sharp increase in abandonments, or whether they saw only temporary increases due to small sample sizes. It is possible that submissions will increase as we move further into 2009, but as things stand at the moment, no significant increase in adoption rates will occur.
