IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i10p5922-d814699.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavioral Outcomes of Children with Same-Sex Parents in The Netherlands

Author

Listed:
  • Deni Mazrekaj

    (Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands
    Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK
    Leuven Economics of Education Research (LEER), KU Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium)

  • Mirjam M. Fischer

    (Institute of Sociology und Social Psychology, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany)

  • Henny M. W. Bos

    (Research Institute Child Development and Education, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 127, 1001 NG Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

Same-sex parents face substantial stressors due to their sexual orientation, such as experiences of prejudice and prohibitive legal environments. This added stress is likely to lead to reduced physical and mental health in same-sex parents that, in turn, may translate into problematic behavioral outcomes in their children. To date, there are only a few nationally representative studies that investigate the well-being of children with same-sex parents. The current study takes a closer look at children’s behavioral outcomes, reported by a parent, using an adapted version of the emotional, conduct, hyperactivity, pro-social, and peer problems subscales of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). We take advantage of unique data from the Netherlands based on a probability sample from population registers, whereby findings can be inferred to same-sex and different-sex parent households with parents between the ages of 30 and 65, and with children between the ages of 6 and 16 years (62 children with same-sex, and 72 children with different-sex parents). The findings obtained by coarsened exact matching suggest no significant disadvantages for children with same-sex parents compared to different-sex parents. We contextualize these findings in their wider cultural context, and recommend a renewed focus in future research away from deficit-driven comparisons.

Suggested Citation

  • Deni Mazrekaj & Mirjam M. Fischer & Henny M. W. Bos, 2022. "Behavioral Outcomes of Children with Same-Sex Parents in The Netherlands," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-12, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5922-:d:814699
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5922/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/10/5922/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Rosenfeld, 2010. "Nontraditional families and childhood progress through school," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(3), pages 755-775, August.
    2. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    3. Aldén, Lina & Björklund, Anders & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2017. "Early Health and School Outcomes for Children with Lesbian Parents: Evidence from Sweden," IZA Discussion Papers 10616, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Deni Mazrekaj, 2022. "Inclusion of LGBT+ researchers is key," Nature, Nature, vol. 605(7908), pages 30-30, May.
    5. Ho, Daniel E. & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2007. "Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 199-236, July.
    6. Perales, Francisco & Todd, Abram, 2018. "Structural stigma and the health and wellbeing of Australian LGB populations: Exploiting geographic variation in the results of the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 190-199.
    7. Diederik Boertien & Fabrizio Bernardi, 2019. "Same-Sex Parents and Children’s School Progress: An Association That Disappeared Over Time," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 477-501, April.
    8. Matthijs Kalmijn & Anneke Loeve & Dorien Manting, 2007. "Income dynamics in couples and the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(1), pages 159-179, February.
    9. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Deni Mazrekaj & Yuxuan Jin, 2023. "Mental health of children with gender and sexual minority parents: a review and future directions," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-6, December.
    2. Dorit Segal-Engelchin & Orit Taubman-Ben-Ari, 2023. "Editorial: Health and Well-Being Related to New Family Forms: Perspectives of Adults, Couples, Children, and Professionals," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-8, April.

    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. Augusto Cerqua & Guido Pellegrini, 2013. "Beyond the SUTVA: how industrial policy evaluations change when we allow for interaction among firms," ERSA conference papers ersa13p340, European Regional Science Association.
    2. Petrov, Ivan & Ryan, Lisa, 2021. "The landlord-tenant problem and energy efficiency in the residential rental market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Srinivasa, Aditya Korekallu & Praveen, K.V. & Subash, S.P. & Nithyashree, ML & Jha, Girish Kumar, 2021. "Does a Farmer’s Knowledge of Minimum Support Price (MSP) Affect the Farm-Gate Price? Evidence from India," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315205, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Calani, Mauricio & Paillacar, Manuel, 2022. "The pass-through of loan-loss-provisioning on mortgage lending: Evidence from a regulatory change," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    5. Dan Li & Liang Zhu & Jian Zhang & Jinjuan Yang, 2021. "Decomposing Differences of Health Service Utilization among Chinese Rural Migrant Workers with New Cooperative Medical Scheme: A Comparative Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-14, September.
    6. Ravi Bapna & Alok Gupta & Gautam Ray & Shweta Singh, 2016. "Research Note —IT Outsourcing and the Impact of Advisors on Clients and Vendors," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 636-647.
    7. Yuri Ostrovsky & Garnett Picot, 2021. "Innovation in immigrant-owned firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1857-1874, December.
    8. Dionne, Kim Yi & Horowitz, Jeremy, 2016. "The Political Effects of Agricultural Subsidies in Africa: Evidence from Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 215-226.
    9. Esther T Maas & Mieke Koehoorn & Christopher B McLeod, 2018. "Return-to-work for multiple jobholders with a work-related musculoskeletal disorder: A population-based, matched cohort in British Columbia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Engberg, Erik & Halvarsson, Daniel & Tingvall, Patrik, 2017. "Direct and Indirect Effects of Private- and Government Sponsored Venture Capital," Ratio Working Papers 288, The Ratio Institute.
    11. Gidehag, Anton, 2019. "Firms’ labor cost savings and recruitment of nonwestern immigrants: The unintended effect of a payroll tax reform," HFI Working Papers 5, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    12. Miaoqing Yang & Eugenio Zucchelli, 2015. "The impact of public smoking bans on well-being externalities: evidence from a natural experiment," Working Papers 85310008, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    13. Lindgren, Charlie & Li, Yujiao & Rudholm, Niklas, 2020. "Why do firms compete on price comparison websites? The impact on productivity, profits, and wages," HFI Working Papers 14, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    14. Anjani Kumar & Vinay K. Sonkar & K. S. Aditya, 2023. "Assessing the Impact of Lending Through Kisan Credit Cards in Rural India: Evidence from Eastern India," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(3), pages 602-622, June.
    15. Li Li & Jinjuan Yang & Shaoguo Zhai & Dan Li, 2022. "Determinants of Differences in Health Service Utilization between Older Rural-to-Urban Migrant Workers and Older Rural Residents: Evidence from a Decomposition Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-16, May.
    16. Patrick, Carlianne & Mothorpe, Christopher, 2017. "Demand for new cities: Property value capitalization of municipal incorporation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-89.
    17. Collin D. Hodges & Heather M. Stephens, 2022. "Does municipal incorporation always increase property values?," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 200-220, March.
    18. Huang, Wei & Li, Fan & Liao, Xiaowei & Hu, Pingping, 2018. "More money, better performance? The effects of student loans and need-based grants in China's higher education," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 208-227.
    19. Arpino, Bruno & Mattei, Alessandra, 2013. "Assessing the Impact of Financial Aids to Firms: Causal Inference in the presence of Interference," MPRA Paper 51795, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Lin, Chang-Ching & Chang, Yun-chien & Chen, Kong-Pin, 2020. "Knowledge in youth is wisdom in age: an empirical study of attorney experience in torts litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).

    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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:10:p:5922-:d:814699. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.