Research analysis from the US gay and lesbian market is suggesting that gay men suffer more work and income discrimination than lesbians. Is that market research analysis assumption valid?
Ian Johnson, Out Now
October 25, 2007
TOPICS: Gay market research. Gay men. Lesbian market research. US Census data analysis suggests gay men earn less relative to heterosexual men. Lesbian Census respondents do not report same income differential. New Hampshire US study compares out gay male co-habiting US census respondents to out lesbian co-habiting US Census respondents to their non-gay counterparts.
Gay Market News yesterday reported on new US Census data research.
How representative is that data?
The suggestion that lesbians do not experience any workplace discrimination when compared to heterosexual women seems, to be honest, unlikely and, in my opinion, calls into question the limitations inherent in relying on census data self-outing to draw a research sample from.
Is it possible that many lesbians could feel less willing to face outing themselves in a research study than gay men, thereby skewing such research data?
The implication that lesbians do not experience income or workplace promotion issues due to sexuality seems odd, almost unreal.
We discussed yesterday how relying on Census data is appealing however it is the case that many people are not at all comfortable being open about their sexuality on a government agency research data collection form.
Yesterday we raised the fact that US gay and lesbian market analysis of Census data has an inherent data reliability problem -- insofar as people are not always comfortable revealing their sexual orientation to researchers if linked to their identity.
Census research data analysis does not always allow for this, as often the collectors of the census data are known to respondents.
Other issues relate to how media and academics may report on the resulting data findings.
What Gay Market News raised yesterday in our reporting on the University of New Hampshire gay market census research US data analysis is today covered in various mainstream media sources.
However their reporting may not always adequately address the research limitations of relying on Census research data -- where lesbian and gay respondents are systemically underrepresented, as we discussed yesterday.
These problems are exacerbated when we consider that mainstream journalists rarely have the space, resources nor the freedom of reporting deadlines to allow them to accurately research and report on the nuances of all aspects of what lies behind reported data.
This is from Reuters today on this study, and is perhaps a good example of how mainstream media does not always get all the perspectives into their reporting of gay and lesbian marketing issues.
Gay men can earn 23 pct less than married men: study
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Gay men, but not lesbians, face discrimination at work, earning up to 23 percent less than married men in some jobs, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Whittemore School of Business and Economics spent two years analyzing labor and wage data from 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples collected by a 2004 U.S. census.
They found that gay men working in management and blue-collar jobs make less money than straight men due to discrimination by their employers
"It was surprising to see how consistent it was that gay men tended to be more discriminated against in traditionally heterosexual male dominated professions -- blue collar, labor, and management too," researcher Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH, told Reuters.
The study found that gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.
They looked at the top 10 occupations that gay men and lesbians tend to be in and found this discrimination showed up most clearly in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning, maintenance, and construction.
But Elmslie and co-author Edinaldo Tebaldi, who is now at Bryant University in Rhode Island, found that lesbians are not discriminated against when compared with heterosexual women.
He said although negative attitudes toward lesbians could affect them, lesbians may actually benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market to raise children than heterosexual women.
According to the study "Sexual Orientation and Labor Market Discrimination," which appears in the Journal of Labor Research, 18.1 percent of lesbians have children, compared with 49.4 percent of straight women.
"Employers could reasonably infer that a lesbian applicant or current employee will have a stronger attachment to the labor force than will a heterosexual woman," said Elmslie.
"If employers perceive one group to be generally less productive or more costly than other groups, individual members of the negatively perceived group will receive lower wage offers regardless of their true characteristics," they said.
Ian Johnson, CEO of Out Now Consulting, is gay marketing specialist business editor of Citizendium, the world's most credible online source of expert-edited reference information.
If you would like expert gay marketing to target the gay and lesbian market, Out Now has a wealth of gay and lesbian marketing expertise to offer.
Out Now gay marketing services include market research, training, advertising, public relations and marketing strategy development. Gay marketing clients include Barclays Bank, IBM, Toyota, German National Tourist Office, Qantas Airways, Visit Britain, Lufthansa, South African Tourism and Citibank.
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