IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v20y2002i4p394-414.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring The Effect Of Sexual Orientation On Income: Evidence Of Discrimination?

Author

Listed:
  • Nathan Berg
  • Donald Lien

Abstract

The effect of nonheterosexuality on individual income is estimated using 1991–1996 General Social Survey data. Other researchers have concluded that homosexuals earn less than similarly qualified workers, in contrast to the popular perception that homosexuals are more affluent than nonhomosexuals. Using improved statistical techniques, this article finds noticeable earnings effects that go in opposite directions across genders. Nonheterosexual men earn 22% less than heterosexual men, and nonheterosexual women earn 30% more than heterosexual women. These findings, viewed together with previous empirical work on this topic, help narrow the field of theories that can explain the sexual‐orientation earnings gaps present in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathan Berg & Donald Lien, 2002. "Measuring The Effect Of Sexual Orientation On Income: Evidence Of Discrimination?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(4), pages 394-414, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:20:y:2002:i:4:p:394-414
    DOI: 10.1093/cep/20.4.394
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/cep/20.4.394
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1093/cep/20.4.394?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark B. Stewart, 1983. "On Least Squares Estimation when the Dependent Variable is Grouped," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 737-753.
    2. Murphy, Kevin M & Welch, Finis, 1990. "Empirical Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 202-229, April.
    3. Kaneko, Mamoru & Kimura, Toshiyuki, 1992. "Conventions, social prejudices and discrimination: A festival game with merrymakers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 511-527, October.
    4. Marieka M. Klawitter & Victor Flatt, 1998. "The effects of state and local antidiscrimination policies on earnings for gays and lesbians," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(4), pages 658-686.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Colm Harmon & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2000. "The Returns to Education: A Review of Evidence, Issues and Deficiencies in the Literature," CEE Discussion Papers 0005, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    2. Emiliya Lazarova & Dinko Dimitrov, 2013. "Status-seeking in hedonic games with heterogeneous players," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(4), pages 1205-1229, April.
    3. Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2010. "The effect of match quality and specific experience on career decisions and wage growth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 407-423, April.
    4. Ramses Abul Naga & Frank Cowell, 2002. "Intergenerational Mobility in Britain: Revisiting the Prediction Approach of Dearden, Machin and Reed," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 02.15, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    5. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2010. "Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 193-210, January.
    6. T.R.L. Fry & R.D. Brooks & Br. Comley & J. Zhang, 1993. "Economic Motivations for Limited Dependent and Qualitative Variable Models," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 69(2), pages 193-205, June.
    7. Sebastian Stolorz, 2005. "A Test of the Signalling Hypothesis - Evidence from Natural Experiment," Labor and Demography 0512008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kristy Fan & Tyler J. Fisher & Andrew A. Samwick, 2021. "The Insurance Value of Financial Aid," NBER Working Papers 28669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & Geoffrey Fisher, 2016. "Religious Identity and Economic Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 617-637, October.
    10. Fitzsimons, Emla & Villadsen, Aase, 2019. "Father departure and children's mental health: How does timing matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 349-358.
    11. Antonio Di Paolo & Aysit Tansel, 2015. "Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 407-421, April.
    12. Milchtaich, Igal & Winter, Eyal, 2002. "Stability and Segregation in Group Formation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 318-346, February.
    13. Sami Napari, 2008. "The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(4), pages 697-733, December.
    14. Esteban Aucejo & Jonathan James, 2021. "The Path to College Education: The Role of Math and Verbal Skills," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(10), pages 2905-2946.
    15. Ronald Mincy & Jennifer Hill & Marilyn Sinkewicz, 2009. "Marriage: Cause or mere indicator of future earnings growth?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 417-439.
    16. Butler, Alexander W. & Yi, Hanyi, 2022. "Aging and public financing costs: Evidence from U.S. municipal bond markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    17. Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2001. "Continuous training in Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(3), pages 523-548.
    18. Sandy Tubeuf & Marc Perronnin, 2008. "New prospects in the analysis of inequalities in health: a measurement of health encompassing several dimensions of health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/01, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    20. Jepsen, Christopher & Jepsen, Lisa K., 2009. "Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 307-315, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:20:y:2002:i:4:p:394-414. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.