Forced child migration: Korea-born intercountry adoptees in the United States

One type of forced child migration, intercountry adoption, has increased significantly in recent decades. The adoption of Korea-born children by Americans has been the strongest intercountry adoption linkage in the world. From 1958 to 1991, Americans adopted 81,000 Korea-born children representing 50 percent of all intercountry adoptions in the United States. Most intercountry adoptees are infants who are unable to participate in the migration decision-making process; they were taken from South Korea and placed into the United States.; This research uses a diffusion process model to investigate the social innovation of adoption of Korea-born children by Americans. Adoption agencies control the migration and destination of adoptees. The migration decision-making process of agencies on behalf of the adoptees was strongly influenced by geo-political relations, adoption policies, and the socio-economic settings in both South Korea and the United States. Socio-cultural factors in South Korea make local adoption undesirable and results in more than 22,000 children in child welfare institutions at any given time, while social and cultural factors in the United States have reduced the number of locally-available infants for adoption, and increased the demand for infants from abroad. About 10,000 foreign-born children were adopted by Americans annually in the 1980s.; The location and activities of agencies shaped the destination patterns of Korea-born adoptees in the United States. The South Korean government restricted adoption agencies in the United States from helping potential adoptive parents not in the geographical service boundary, usually the state of agency location. Agencies that maintained close relationships with South Korean agencies received many Korea-born children for adoption. The largest numbers of Korea-born adoptees went to the upper Midwest, and Pacific Northwest, areas that have attracted relatively few adult and voluntary Korean immigrants. The agencies in those areas have been actively involved in establishing Korean adoption programs and child welfare programs.