IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9044.html

Do Schools Discriminate Against Homosexual Parents? Evidence from an Internet Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Diaz-Serrano, Luis

    (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

  • Meix-Llop, Enric

    (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

Abstract

The recognition of homosexual rights is a controversial issue in many countries. Spain was the third country in the world (after Netherlands and Belgium) to introduce a law recognizing homosexual marriage and adoption of children. In this paper, we examine for the first time whether schools are more hesitant to give feedback to homosexual parents during children's pre-registration period in Spain. In order to do that, we designed an internet field experiment to be conducted in schools. We created three types of fictitious couples; one heterosexual, one male homosexual and one female homosexual, and send emails to schools making sexual orientation explicit. Our results show that men homosexual couples had a significant lower probability to receive and answer than heterosexual couples (22.5 percentage points less). No statistically significant differences in the response rate were found between female homosexual and heterosexual couples. This result suggests that male homosexual couples might be penalized because of the lack of a maternal figure.

Suggested Citation

  • Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Meix-Llop, Enric, 2015. "Do Schools Discriminate Against Homosexual Parents? Evidence from an Internet Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 9044, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9044.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. repec:bla:econom:v:72:y:2005:i:286:p:333-347 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Ahmed, Ali M. & Andersson, Lina & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2008. "Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 234-238, September.
    4. repec:ilr:articl:v:48:y:1995:i:4:p:726-739 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Weichselbaumer, Doris, 2003. "Sexual orientation discrimination in hiring," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 629-642, December.
    6. Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 565-585, January.
    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. Plug, Erik & Berkhout, Peter, 2008. "Sexual Orientation, Disclosure and Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 3290, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. 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.
    10. Stephan Humpert, 2012. "Somewhere over the Rainbow: Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 245, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    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. Diaz-Serrano, Luis & Meix-Llop, Enric, 2016. "Do schools discriminate against homosexual parents? Evidence from a randomized correspondence experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 133-142.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Mats Hammarstedt & Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson, 2015. "Sexual Prejudice and Labor Market Outcomes for Gays and Lesbians: Evidence from Sweden," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 90-109, January.
    5. John Levendis & Aaron Lowen, 2023. "What Same-Sex Adoption Laws Can Tell Us About the Gender Wage Gap in the United States," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 473-489, June.
    6. Shahar Sansani & Arik Rozental, 2018. "Who Favours The Gay Community? Experimental Evidence Using Charitable Donations," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 1-16, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Sexual Orientation, Labour Earnings, and Household Income in Canada," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 41-55, March.
    9. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Sexual orientation, labour supply and occupational sorting in Canada," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 298-318, July.
    10. Graves, Jennifer & Trond, Christopher, 2024. "Employment discrimination and labor market protections for sexual minorities in Brazil," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    11. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Lina Aldén & Mats Hammarstedt & Hanna Swahnberg, 2020. "Sexual Orientation and Job Satisfaction: Survey-Based Evidence from Sweden," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 69-101, June.
    14. Geijtenbeek, Lydia & Plug, Erik, 2015. "Is There a Penalty for Becoming a Woman? Is There a Premium for Becoming a Man? Evidence from a Sample of Transsexual Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 9077, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Geijtenbeek, Lydia & Plug, Erik, 2018. "Is there a penalty for registered women? Is there a premium for registered men? Evidence from a sample of transsexual workers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 334-347.
    16. Enzo Brox & Riccardo Di Francesco, 2024. "The Cost of Coming Out," Papers 2403.03649, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2025.
    17. Nick Drydakis, 2022. "Sexual orientation discrimination in the labor market against gay men," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 1027-1058, September.
    18. 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.
    19. 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).
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • K36 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Family and Personal Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp9044. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.