Attrition Results
First let’s compare this survey group with the last survey group.
- When we did this the last time the attrition rate for those who had just received a referral was 32%. This time that number is 30%. Considering the fact that we’re working with a sample of the total, those are statistically about the same.
- Last time the attrition rate for LID’s from November 05 to the end of April 06 was 20%. This time that rate is 22%. Again, close enough to be statistically about the same.
- Last time the attrition rate for May of 06 through December of 06 was 10% but I didn’t have a large sample size. This time I have a large sample size and the attrition rate is 20% for that time period. I do not have a lot of confidence in that 10% number because of the sample size, so I’m not sure it’s safe to say attrition has doubled for that time period.
And the easiest way to show the rest of the data is in a spreadsheet. I have a large enough sample size in all of the below categories to feel confident that the numbers are in the right ballpark.
The total attrition rate is 18%, but I don’t really believe that number tells us anything. Too many people in that total number are in the earlier stages and may or not make it to the end. The important number is the one we have for those who just received a referral since for that batch no one else is going to drop out.
The total rate does give us a benchmark to use when we compare the US and non-US numbers, though.The non-US attrition rate is 14%, which is a lot less than the US rate of 19%. A big part of this is because in some countries families spend years just reaching the point where they can submit their dossier. For these families, starting over with another country is simply not an option.
I also took a look at the agencies that allow families to pursue a concurrent adoption vs the agencies that do not, and the end result seems to be that it doesn’t really matter.
Next I looked at time frames. You’ll note that the highest rate is for the months of April through June of 06. When looking at the raw numbers the attrition rate jumps at the very end of March (27th, to be exact). April and May have the highest rates right now.
Also, an unexplained oddity is that while November 05’s attrition rate is high (around 30%), December’s when looked at alone is only 15%. And then January 06 jumps back into the mid 20’s again. I’m not sure why December is so low while the months around December are all higher.
So what do we do with this data? Probably not much right now. The numbers are about the same as the benchmark numbers from four months ago. We now have more extensive benchmark numbers to use for comparison the next time we do this.
As it stands right now, as LID groups get referred it appears that one in three people who started the process are not finishing it in the same line they started. And, it appears that there are some ‘06 months that could end up with even higher attrition rates since they are already at that point.
September 11th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
“…it appears that one in three people who started the process are not finishing it in the same line they started” yet referral days/numbers are so dismally low…seeing all this together makes me realize it’s worse than any of us might have thought. My instinctual reaction? Yikes! Thanks for bringing this to light, RQ. I appreciate your research and data compilation.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Thank you RQ. I know it takes a lot of time to evaluate and analyze the numbers. You are greatly appreciated.
Spam word is baba. I hope my husband gets to be one some day.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
RQ…very interesting data…Thanks for all your hard work. CTG THANKFULLY NOW!!!
September 11th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
RQ - Do you have any idea how much of the attrition was due to moving from the NSN to the SN queue?
September 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
RQ,
I am just curious what percent of agencies allow concurrent adoptions?
Thanks so much, T
September 11th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Ooops sorry, just looked at the graph and see it. Thanks so much! T
September 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
I do not know what percentage of agencies allow them.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Amazing, and so sad. I had no idea the attrition rate was so high for Nov/05. Our (small) travel group is intact. We’re next, and the wait has been plodding hard, but the possibility that so many people started with high hopes and then had to stop, how painful. I hope that those who left the China program still wanting to expand their families, have since brought their children home.
RQ, it looks like this number crunching was a lot of work. Thank you for sharing your skills, and providing this important information.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
This is very interesting. Thank you so much or the analysis. I have a mid o6 LID. For that time frame, I have to wonder if when combine the increase in poll numbers as you approach referral with the attrition rate, perhaps they wash. When I analyze numbers I always increase poll number by a percentage because we are still far from referral and we know that more people “tune in” as they get closer. At the same time there may be many or ‘06 people already tuned in because they may have decisions to make. Just putting some of my thoughts out there.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Thanks RQ….not really sure what to think of it all…but I appreciate the hard number crunching.
Well this is one family outta I don’t know how many that is not leaving the line….:-)
~Linda
September 11th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Anyone know what the “normal” attrition rate is?
2-3 years ago when things were going smoothly, how many people dropped out possibly for financial, health, and etc?
September 12th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Does the attrition rate include those who have left nsn for sn?
September 12th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Wow this is just amazing. I wander if the CCAA are patting themselves on the back, and going “it’s working”. Why not either stop and play catchup or actually say there is a quota in place and due to XXX, we will be doing XXX, rather than keep us all guessing. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of months.
We’ll we really aren’t guessing anymore, thanks to the global network on this site we now know more than our agencies and SW.
September 12th, 2007 at 6:00 am
RQ, do you have ANY idea of the percentage of the attrition who switched to sn, China? Not sure I’m clear here… I wonder how many just dropped out completely (hopefully finding other good solutions!) and how many changed to the sn-route?
September 12th, 2007 at 7:28 am
RQ–does the attrition for NSN to SN mean that for the near future, those people have already been placed? Just wondering if the slowdown and large increase of SN babies placed instead of NSN each month (re your earlier discussion of the ratio between the SN and NSN and the overall “quota”) might be changing. I guess not, really, as people will be switching to SN probably at the same rate they always did and will be placed sooner.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:06 am
You’re so great with numbers……. and details.
Thanks. I do have a question, agencies that allow for concurrent adoption, are you allowed to maintain the 2 Countries to the finish? I know that my agency, which allows for concurrencies, states that you must choose one Country when you are in the home stretch so to speak, and drop out of the other. I think the time is within 4 months of getting a child, you must choose to drop the other Country. Just wondering if it’s their policy, or across the board and standard now.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Thanks RQ. Numbers make my head hurt. :)
Anti-spam: USCIS. And I’m re-applying today. And hoping I’m not reapplying 18 months later.
LID 7/26/06
September 12th, 2007 at 8:42 am
RQ,
Thank you for doing this. WOW. Numbers make my head hurt (like east and west).
We are waiting, despite what coworkers & some others say (’find a new country’…)
I’m glad I found this website.
Lisa
LID: 12.20.06
September 12th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Intresting data, on the December item , I wonder how much of the slow down is due to the Holidays here? Also I read somewhere that the CCAA has upgraded the online paperwork for the agencys and the CCAA to speed up the process. Could this be starting to show it’s self too? Mark
September 12th, 2007 at 9:50 am
“Next I looked at time frames. You’ll note that the highest rate is for the months of April through June of 06. When looking at the raw numbers the attrition rate jumps at the very end of March (27th, to be exact). April and May have the highest rates right now.”
All of us who have watched the November referral cycle (with horror at times) are looking toward March and wondering what is in store. It’s hard to be sitting right behind that bubble with an April or May 06 LID and not consider a way around (or over) it. Many people LID in those months started paperchasing prior to the slowdown in Oct 05 and are the last of the “6 months wait” crowd. As part of that group, jumping ship for some other program comes up every month.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Thanks for doing the maths! And also pointing out that those from the UK do not have the option to do domestic or another country adoption whilst waiting for China to refer. To change to either a another country or domestic means going back to the beginning for us!!!
I think they like to make IA very difficult in the UK!!!!! I suppose they know that we are in it for the long run!!!
September 12th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I wonder how many other situations may result in attrition, for example families beginning the fertility path again due to the wait and are successful, these people may decide to stop the adoption process. Anyone else have thoughts?
September 12th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I can think of many reasons for attrition, none of which are good: death, divorce, debilitating disease, loss of job, loss of interest. The only good one I can think of is having or adopting a baby.
September 12th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Hi star6172,
We started this process over 2 years ago when the wait was 7 months and my youngest son was 2. We thought we would be able to complete the adoption in a little over a year or so. Our boys are older now we wonder if we’re to getting too far past the baby phase and too old to start over again.
My husband’s enthusiasm has waned and with the apparent decrease in the number of babies available he wonders if we should just pull out and be happy with our family as is. If when we were deciding to adopt we had considered the China adoption program as it is today we would not have chosen to proceed. The facts were very different back then which puts us in an uncomfortable position today.
But for me it’s harder than for my husband. I’m more emotionally involved - I’ve spent 2.5 years thinking about this baby and educating myself about adoption and China. To pull out now would be a very sad thing. But I also have to say that during the long wait I’ve had a lot of time to learn about and consider all the things that could go wrong. I worry more now about undiagnosed serious problems with the baby than I would have if we had received our referral a year ago. So we’re considering pulling out - we have been for a while. There’s no big reason like financial or health problems - we’re just trying to decide which path to is best for our family.
September 12th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Bornfromtheheart, I’m in your camp. When we started the process for DD #1 in 2002 there was a quota in place. It worked. We had a specific timeframe and even tho SARS delayed us a bit, we were still within a month or two from our expected date of referral. As my mom says, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Yes, RQ … thanks so much for all you do.
LID 11/10/06
September 12th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Thanks, RQ, for making sense out of all this. We’d never know this info without you. I’m anxious to see what the numbers look like again in 6 months or so….
September 12th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I feel for all of you. Having watched the wait go from 6 month (when my file hit the CCAA) to 1 year last spring, and then hitting close to two years now, I can tell you that I have been so exhausted by this wait. In total I have waited 4 years (too difficult to explain why) to meet my DD. This week has been fabulous for me; I saw her face and I know that this is the child meant to join my family. Have I forgotten the wait…nope..would I do it again for my child..YUP!!!
Do I regret doing this: NOPE…Will I ever do it again for so long: don’t know. Its been very hard not to let the wait get to me. I certainly can tell you this site has made a huge difference for me!!! The wait is very hard. I can only tell you that for my family and for myself it is all worth it!!! Will I ever forget the wait..no way, I cannot believe that for a minute!!
September 12th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
NOW I think we know why the CCAA does not have time to give more referrals each month. They are rummaging through 40,000+ dossiers every day trying to pull out the dossiers of families who are choosing to drop out of the program!
September 12th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
WOW…..Rumor Queen!!!…….Watching you in action with numbers is amazing….I am currently working on my Master’s degree and am enrolled in Statistics I……WOW…..I think I’m going to refer to your site and the work you do to bring “statistics” to life for many of us…into our everyday life…last week lesson was on Frequency Distribution…next is measures of Central tendencies…..do you use SPSS to help tabulate?????
Thanks again…..LID March 17, 2006.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
RQ — Is there any information on the attrition rate of China Only vs. Multi-Country agencies? Just curious if more people stay with the China Only because they feel “stuck”.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
flash95,
great question
September 12th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
flash95 - I didn’t do that because not all multi country agencies allow people to switch and use some of the fees already payed. And I’m not positive about which handle it the various ways.
mumarlene - I just use Excel.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:15 am
As 3/29/07 LID it’s interesting that the attrition rate is already at 10% for Jan thru July 07.
I’m curious of there are any stats showing the numbers of what people getting out of NSN are switching to (SN vs out of the program all together). Since it seems that the wait for nsn is affected by families switching to sn.
Thanks RQ
September 13th, 2007 at 6:26 am
catherinethegreat:
I’ve enjoyed reading your notes that last few months and was amazed you started with only a six month wait and it stretched to almost two years. We started with a 12 month wait which may stretch to 2.5 to 3 years! However, we are considering an older child which may soon take us out of the lineup (and speed things up for those who come after our LID).
Drew
LID 4-06-06