Lesbian and Gay Incomes Market Research

Gay and lesbian marketing is often infused with a strong desire by clients to know what are lesbian and gay incomes. Fair enough, but how well do we know what they are? The devil is, as often is the case, in the detail.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 11, 2007

TOPICS: Lesbian and gay marketing. GLBT market research data. Gay community marketing. Lesbian and gay market research data. US research into lesbian and gay incomes. Lesbian and gay equality and levels of discrimination.

Gay Market News discussed last month new US gay consumer market research analysis of US Census data that seems to suggest that gay men, but not lesbians, suffered lower incomes than heterosexual counterparts as a result of their sexuality.

We questioned the difficulties inherent in relying on Census data where many respondents may hold significant privacy concerns related to the data collection method and revealing being lesbian or gay to a researcher that may or may not be known to them.

We also think it is probably reckless to suggest that lesbians are not currently experiencing workplace discrimination issues or income disparity.

That was picked up on by Queercents who made some interesting comments. We've extracted a small sample of that for you below, and for additional context, you may also want to read the original Gay Market News article on the topic too.

Now the study does indicate that the discrimination is most pronounced in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations. Even so, I would hope as a species that we’ve evolved at least a little bit since the caveman days.

Personally I can see some of the rationale with perceptions of lesbians being that they are more committed to their careers than their straight counterparts. Many are. And, the lack of children (for many, certainly not all) often means that career is the #1 focus for these professional women. As a result they tend to spend more time and effort cultivating this part of their life. However, regardless of perception, the study is only comparing lesbians to their heterosexual counterparts. And, we already know that women earn only a fraction of what men do. And, for a two woman household that is no small change.

Perhaps what is most interesting to note is that perhaps the perception of gay men is more negative than that of lesbians. We often just group the efforts of the right wing and other discriminatory and inflamatory groups into one big chunk - “Gays or LGBT”. Or, maybe the simple fact that all these studies are based on Census and other data that relies on self-outing may be just wildly inaccurate and nonrepresentative.

Gay Market News speaks to this fact in detail saying:

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.

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