Census finds 2.9 percent of Hawai'i keiki adopted

Advertiser Staff

A Census Bureau report indicates that nearly one of every 35 children in Hawai'i is adopted.

The report said the 2000 census counted 238,287 children under 18 years of age in Hawai'i. Of those, 6,941 — or 2.9 percent — were adopted, a slightly higher percentage than the national average.

The Census Bureau's first-ever profile of adopted children shows 1.6 million adoptees under the age of 18 in the United States.

While foreign adoptions are increasing, the report said 87 percent of adoptees under the age of 18 were born in the United States.

Nearly half of the foreign-born adoptees were from Asia, while about one-third came from Latin America and about one-sixth from Europe. South Korea was the largest source of foreign-born adopted children, accounting for 22 percent of adopted children from other countries.

Nationwide, 82 percent of the 1.7 million households with adopted children of all ages had one adopted child, while 15 percent had two and 3 percent had three or more.

While Hawai'i's percentage of adopted children ranked in the top 10 among states, the proportion of adopted children showed little variation by region or state. The nationwide average was 2.5 percent, with percentages ranging from about 2 percent in Delaware, California, Texas and Louisiana to 3.9 percent in Alaska.