Where Do Families Headed by Same-Sex Couples Fall Within the U.S. Income Distribution?

By building an entire counterfactual income distribution in which married/cohabiting male and female same-sex couple families and married/cohabiting different-sex couple families have the same composition in terms of education, race, age, presence of children, and geographical variables, we determine the differential effect of these factors to explain the position of each family type within the income distribution. We also explore the income sources from which intergroup income differences arise. This approach enables us to integrate the position of individuals in the labor market and their wellbeing in terms of family income (once the effects of the above variables are accounted for). Our analysis suggests that the sexual orientation wage disadvantage that men in same-sex couples experience coexists with a family income advantage (in both the actual and the counterfactual economy), which arises from the higher probability of two-earner couples among male same-sex couples and their gender wage advantage. However, these two features are not enough to protect male couples in the low tail of the income distribution, who have lower conditional earnings than married different-sex couple families do. As for female same-sex couple families, their position in the counterfactual income distribution seems to be strongly limited by the gender wage gap these women experience, which is not outweighed by the sexual orientation wage advantage they have and the higher probability of two-earner couples among these families.