Being twice more likely than women to adopt children, 1.2 million men aged between 15 and 44, as compared to 613,000 women, in the same age group, adopted children according to the data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth.
However, while men who adopt are more likely to have already fathered a child than men who do not adopt, the same doesn’t hold true for women. For the fairer sex, women who have never had a child are more likely to adopt than mothers who have their biological children.
While previous government surveys focused greatly on the patterns of adoption among married women, the current survey is the first to look at men's experiences of adoption as well as those of unmarried women.
Though unable to outline the exact reason as to why more men adopt children than women, the reason, however, may have a lot to do with the nature of family living arrangements, experts feel.
When couples divorce, children usually live with biological mothers. And when single men remarry they are more likely to adopt their spouse’s children from her previous relationship, they explain.
While, married men are 2.5 times more likely than women to have adopted, overall, 2.3 percent of all men had adopted a child, the study found. Among never-married adults, aged between 18 and 44, 100,000 women compared with 73,000 men adopted a child in 2002.
Also, nearly three-fourth of all women seeking infertility treatments prefer adopting a child. About 90 percent would accept a child with disabilities.
Moreover, while adoption rates vary between 118,000 and 127,000 a year within the U.S, more would-be parents are now seeking adopting children from other nations. International adoption rates tripled from 7,093 in 1990 to 19,237 in 2002, the report highlights.
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