It’s the guys.  The young ones, between 18 and 44 years of age.  In 2002, at least 1.2 million men in this age group adopted children but only 613,000 women the same age did.

These numbers come from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Health Statistics.  The  centers issued a report today profiling the typical American male and female adult who adopts a child.  Some of their findings indicate:

• Men classified as ever-married were 2.5 times more likely to have adopted a child (or 3.8% of that population) versus 1.4% of women doing so
• 2.3% of all American men in this age group had adopted a child
• Of women aged 40 to 44 who had been treated for infertility at least once, more than one in four of them adopted
• Only about 100,000 never-married women and 73,000 never-married men reported having an adopted child
• Black and Hispanic women were more interested in adoption in 2002 than were white women

The report offers no explanation for the large number of men adopting children but CDC analysts suspect the high number is influenced by the men who marry mothers with children and adopt those children as their own.

Source: CDC