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Page: Prevalence of Circumcision
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Estimates of the proportion of males that are circumcised worldwide vary from one sixth (12.5%) to one third (33.3%). According to one author, the practice is "a falling trend internationally", although another notes indications of increasing demand in Southern Africa.
Australia
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the infant circumcision rate in Australia was 12.9% as of 2003. However, rates in the states varied, with highest rates in Queensland (19.3%), New South Wales (16.3%) and South Australia (14.3%), and the lowest in Tasmania (1.6%).
Denmark
In 1986, only 511 out of approximately 478,000 Danish boys aged 0-14 years were circumcised. This corresponds to a cumulative national circumcision rate of around 1.6% by the age of 15 years.
South Korea
It has been estimated on the basis of an academic medical survey that some 78% of South Korean men may be circumcised and it has been stated that "South Korea has possibly the largest absolute number of teenage or adult circumcisions anywhere in the world. Because circumcision started through contact with the American military during the Korean War, South Korea has an unusual history of circumcision."
United Kingdom
A national survey on sexual attitudes in 2000 found that 11.7% of 16-19 year olds, and 19.6% of 40-44 year olds said they had been circumcised. It also found that, apart from black Caribbeans, overseas born men were more likely to be circumcised. Rickwood et al reported that the proportion of English boys circumcised for medical reasons had fallen from 35% in the early 1930s to 6.5% by the mid-1980s. An estimated 3.8% of male children in the UK in 2000 were being circumcised by the age of 15 . The researchers stated that too many boys, especially under the age of 5, were still being circumcised because of a misdiagnosis of phimosis. They called for a target to reduce the percentage to 2%.
United States
Statistics from different sources give different pictures of infant circumcision rates in the United States.
A recent study, which used data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (a sample of 5-7 million of the nation's total inpatient stays, and representing a 20% sample taken from 8 states in 1988 and 28 in 2000), stated that circumcisions rose from 48.3% in 1988 to 61.1% in 1997.
Figures from the 2003 Nationwide Hospital Discharge Survey state that circumcision rates declined from 64.7% in 1980 to 59.0% in 1990, rose to 64.1% in 1995, and fell again to 55.9% in 2003. On page 52, it is shown that the western region of the United States has seen the most significant change, declining from 61.8% in 1980 to 31.4% in 2003. The decline in the western region has been partly attributed to increasing births among Latin Americans, who usually do not circumcise.
A national survey of adult men found that 91% of men born in the 1970s, and 83% of men born in the 1980s were circumcised.
Statistics from these national samples differs from higher rates that have been documented in individual centers. One explanation is that "the published results of national statistical surveys represent only coded diagnoses obtained from birth centers; the reported figures do not include males who are circumcised at a later date for religious, medical, or personal reasons or who received newborn circumcision that was not coded."
There are various explanations why the infant circumcision rate in the United States are different from comparable countries. Some obstetricians have been accused of using circumcision as a quick and easy way of making money. Many parents’ decisions about circumcision are preconceived, and this may contribute to the high rate of elective circumcision.
Medicaid funding for infant circumcision used to be universal in the United States; however, sixteen states no longer pay for the procedure under Medicaid . One study in the Midwest of the U.S. found that this had no effect on the newborn circumcision rate but it did affect the demand for circumcision at a later time.
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