IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v83y2017i4p903-931.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sexual Identity, Same‐Sex Relationships, and Labour Market Dynamics: New Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph J. Sabia
  • Mark Wooden
  • Thanh Tam Nguyen

Abstract

Using newly collected data on sexual identity from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, this study examines the relationship between sexual identity and labour market outcomes. Our findings show that gay males are: (i) less likely to be continuously employed than their heterosexual counterparts, and (ii) face an annual earnings penalty of 16–21%. There are also important differences in earnings dynamics for men who transition into (or out of) same‐sex versus opposite‐sex live‐in relationships. Individual fixed effects estimates show that opposite‐sex partnerships are associated with increased earnings for men, while same‐sex partnerships are associated with small declines in earnings that are statistically indistinguishable from zero. For women, we find evidence of an earnings premium for lesbians, driven largely by increased labour supply on the intensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph J. Sabia & Mark Wooden & Thanh Tam Nguyen, 2017. "Sexual Identity, Same‐Sex Relationships, and Labour Market Dynamics: New Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Australia," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(4), pages 903-931, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:903-931
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12181
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12181
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12181?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. Joseph J. Sabia, 2015. "Fluidity in Sexual Identity, Unmeasured Heterogeneity, and the Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 33-58, January.
    2. O'Neill, June & Polachek, Solomon, 1993. "Why the Gender Gap in Wages Narrowed in the 1980s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(1), pages 205-228, January.
    3. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2015. "Testing for Discrimination against Lesbians of Different Marital Status: A Field Experiment," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 131-161, January.
    4. Erik Plug & Peter Berkhout, 2004. "Effects of sexual preferences on earnings in the Netherlands," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 117-131, February.
    5. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2010. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 228-255, July.
    7. Eleonora Patacchini & Giuseppe Ragusa & Yves Zenou, 2015. "Unexplored dimensions of discrimination in Europe: homosexuality and physical appearance," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(4), pages 1045-1073, October.
    8. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2006. "The U.S. Gender Pay Gap in the 1990S: Slowing Convergence," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(1), pages 45-66, October.
    9. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    10. Suzanne Heller Clain & Karen Leppel, 2001. "An investigation into sexual orientation discrimination as an explanation for wage differences," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 37-47.
    11. Boeri, Tito & Patacchini, Eleonora & Peri, Giovanni (ed.), 2015. "Unexplored Dimensions of Discrimination," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198729853, December.
    12. Carpenter, Christopher S., 2007. "Revisiting the income penalty for behaviorally gay men: Evidence from NHANES III," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 25-34, January.
    13. Lina Aldén & Lena Edlund & Mats Hammarstedt & Michael Mueller-Smith, 2015. "Effect of Registered Partnership on Labor Earnings and Fertility for Same-Sex Couples: Evidence From Swedish Register Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(4), pages 1243-1268, August.
    14. Christopher S. Carpenter, 2008. "Sexual orientation, work, and income in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(4), pages 1239-1261, November.
    15. Dan A. Black & Hoda R. Makar & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell J. Taylor, 2003. "The Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 449-469, April.
    16. Sanders Korenman & David Neumark, 1991. "Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 282-307.
    17. Erik Plug & Dinand Webbink & Nick Martin, 2014. "Sexual Orientation, Prejudice, and Segregation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 123-159.
    18. Nick Drydakis, 2015. "Effect of Sexual Orientation on Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Greece," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 162-187, January.
    19. Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 565-585, January.
    20. Brendan Cushing‐Daniels & Tsz‐Ying Yeung, 2009. "Wage Penalties And Sexual Orientation: An Update Using The General Social Survey," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(2), pages 164-175, April.
    21. Dan A. Black & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell J. Taylor, 2007. "The Economics of Lesbian and Gay Families," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 53-70, Spring.
    22. Darren Lubotsky, 2007. "Chutes or Ladders? A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 820-867, October.
    23. Jeff Frank, 2006. "Gay Glass Ceilings," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(291), pages 485-508, August.
    24. Marieka Klawitter, 2011. "Multilevel analysis of the effects of antidiscrimination policies on earnings by sexual orientation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 334-358, March.
    25. Marieka Klawitter, 2008. "The effects of sexual orientation and marital status on how couples hold their money," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 423-446, December.
    26. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1997. "Swimming Upstream: Trends in the Gender Wage Differential in 1980s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42, January.
    27. Oettinger, Gerald S, 1996. "Statistical Discrimination and the Early Career Evolution of the Black-White Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 52-78, January.
    28. Mark Wooden, 2013. "The Measurement of Cognitive Ability in Wave 12 of the HILDA Survey," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2013n44, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    29. Plug, Erik & Berkhout, Peter, 2008. "Sexual Orientation, Disclosure and Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 3290, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    30. Christopher Carpenter, 2008. "Sexual orientation, income, and non-pecuniary economic outcomes: new evidence from young lesbians in Australia," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 391-408, December.
    31. 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.
    32. Bernt Bratsberg & Dek Terrell, 1998. "Experience, Tenure, and Wage Growth of Young Black and White Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(3), pages 658-682.
    33. Christopher Carpenter & Gary Gates, 2008. "Gay and lesbian partnership: Evidence from California," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 573-590, August.
    34. Ali Ahmed & Mats Hammarstedt, 2010. "Sexual orientation and earnings: a register data-based approach to identify homosexuals," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(3), pages 835-849, June.
    35. Christopher S. Carpenter, 2008. "Sexual orientation, work, and income in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1239-1261, November.
    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. Christopher S. Carpenter & Samuel T. Eppink, 2017. "Does It Get Better? Recent Estimates of Sexual Orientation and Earnings in the United States," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 426-441, October.
    2. Aksoy, Billur & Chadd, Ian & Koh, Boon Han, 2023. "Sexual identity, gender, and anticipated discrimination in prosocial behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Billur Aksoy & Ian Chadd & Boon Han Koh, 2022. "(Anticipated) Discrimination against Sexual Minorities in Prosocial Domains," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2021-08, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    4. Nick Drydakis, 2022. "Sexual orientation and earnings: a meta-analysis 2012–2020," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 409-440, 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. Sabia, Joseph J. & Wooden, Mark, 2015. "Sexual Identity, Earnings, and Labour Market Dynamics: New Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 8935, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Sexual Orientation, Labour Earnings, and Household Income in Canada," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 41-55, March.
    3. Joseph J. Sabia, 2015. "Fluidity in Sexual Identity, Unmeasured Heterogeneity, and the Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 33-58, January.
    4. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    5. Michael E. Martell, 2018. "Identity Management: Worker Independence And Discrimination Against Gay Men," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 136-148, January.
    6. Chen, Shuai, 2019. "Marriage, minorities, and mass movements," Other publications TiSEM 9cb1b11d-12e6-46a8-adca-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Thierry Laurent & Ferhat Mihoubi, 2012. "Sexual Orientation and Wage Discrimination in France: The Hidden Side of the Rainbow," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 487-527, December.
    8. Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 565-585, January.
    9. Stephan Humpert, 2012. "Somewhere over the Rainbow: Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 245, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    10. Marieka Klawitter, 2015. "Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Sexual Orientation on Earnings," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 4-32, January.
    11. Sanghoon Lee, 2021. "Social Tolerance and Economic Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 1087-1103, December.
    12. Mary Eschelbach Hansen & Michael E. Martell, 2014. "Self-Identified Sexual Orientation and the Lesbian Earnings Differential," Working Papers 2014-13, American University, Department of Economics.
    13. Josef Montag, 2015. "What Drives the Gender Gap? An Analysis Using Sexual Orientation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 577-608, November.
    14. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2015. "Testing for Discrimination against Lesbians of Different Marital Status: A Field Experiment," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 131-161, January.
    15. Erik Plug & Dinand Webbink & Nick Martin, 2014. "Sexual Orientation, Prejudice, and Segregation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 123-159.
    16. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2013. "Discrimination in gay and lesbian lives," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 15, pages 236-254, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Noah Uhrig, S.C., 2014. "An examination of poverty and sexual orientation in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-02, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    18. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Dean, Jason, 2020. "Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    19. Shuai Chen & Jan C. Ours, 2018. "Subjective Well-being and Partnership Dynamics: Are Same-Sex Relationships Different?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2299-2320, December.
    20. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

    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:wly:soecon:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:903-931. 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://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.