Though adoption in China is known to have increased as more girls were abandoned and became available for adoption following the introduction of the country's one-child policy in the 1980s, little is known about Chinese adoption practices. This paper investigates the factors affecting adoption in China in the period 1950-87 using data from the National Two-Per-Thousand Sample Survey on Fertility and Contraception of 1988. The results show that the national adoption rate was 2.3 per cent. Childless women were more likely than women with children to adopt and did not show a sex preference. Women with children by birth used adoption to secure a child of the 'missing' sex. Women who had experienced the death of a child were more likely to adopt than those who had not. Women with children may have used adoption as a strategy to circumvent the strict family planning policies.