A new report released yesterday by the Williams Institute debunks the myth of gay affluence perpetuated by marketers and the media. They found that:
1. Gay and lesbian couple families are significantly more likely to be poor than are heterosexual married couple families.
2. Specifically, that lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families.
3. Children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children in heterosexual married couple households.
The authors of the report used information from the 2000 Census, the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and the California Health Interview Surveys from 2003 and 2005.
Download a PDF of the report or read a full analysis in the Washington Blade.
Comments
Interesting. I didn't know there was such a stereotype. What the analysis doesn't address, however, is the fact that statistically (I would think), more gay couples are childless than are hetero couples, and aren't couples with children usually less-well-off financially? It would have been interested to see a breakdown or analysis based on whether there are children.
I really doubt there is much good data out there to work off of- the 2000 census? Come on- did it really ask people to identify if they were gay? Are you sure this isn't another poor "scientific" study to show why gays shouldn't be parents?
Thanks for the laugh, I needed it! I would appreciate it if you people would send this article to my family so they would stop calling us to borrow money everytime they get their hetrosexual butts in trouble.
This is a thinly veiled study to keep the Christan Right Organizations happy. Try again Williams Institute.
The 2000 Census didn't ask people if they were gay, but it did offer an option to identify how you were related to each other, including a "same-sex couple" option. It'll be interesting to see what the 2010 Census does in this regard.
And I don't think the Williams Institute (a part of the USC law school) was trying to say same-sex couples shouldn't be parents, I think they were showing that LGB people are still being discriminated against in the workplace.
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