ABSTRACT
In the modern history of child adoption in Japan, private arrangements between families have been supplemented by arrangements mediated in civil society, such as the international adoptions in the years following the Second World War, and then by adoptions arranged through the state child guidance centres, including most special adoptions. Taking the end of the war as a starting point, the proportion of children adopted through the family, civil society or state has changed as first voluntary and independent adoption organizations became involved and then the state increased its role. The actual proportion of children adopted through each sector cannot be calculated, but for illustrative purposes it can be assumed, very roughly, that arrangements made through families, civil society and the state now account for an equal share of the adoption of babies and younger children when ordinary, special and international adoptions are combined. This development over the last 60 years is notionally shown in Figure 11.1, a phase diagram.47 The changing proportion of children adopted by different routes follows the dotted line that starts with family adoptions and curves to a central point between family, civil society and state.
