Chinese adopted kids more likely in top secondary schools

Children adopted from China do better in school than non adopted children. At the age of 15, 30 percent of Chinese-adopted kids are enrolled in a top secondary school, compared to 21 percent of their non-adopted peers. This is according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands on Thursday. Children adopted from South Korea also do well in school compared to non-adopted children, but children adopted from other countries are on lower levels of education on average. Statistics Netherlands partly attributes the Chinese kids' good performance to the fact that kids in the country are often put up for adoption due to the one child policy, not because of poverty. These kids may therefore had more favorable living conditions before birth than other adopted children. Kids adopted from China are almost exclusively girls, while other adopted children are relatively more often boys. Since girls on average perform better in school than boys - 23 percent of non adopted female 15 year olds are in a top secondary school compared to 20 percent of boys - this also partly explains the differences in performance between Chinese and other adopted children. Adopted children also more frequently live in families with higher incomes. Families with higher incomes may have more money available for tutoring and other forms of assistance in the field of learning.