Study identifies gender specific effects in homosexual households
Gay Couple with child (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There is a new and significant piece of evidence in the social science debate about gay parenting and the unique contributions that mothers and fathers make to their children’s flourishing. A study published last month in the journal Review of the Economics of the Household—analyzing data from a very large, population-based sample—reveals that the children of gay and lesbian couples are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples. And gender matters, too: girls are more apt to struggle than boys, with daughters of gay parents displaying dramatically low graduation rates. Unlike US-based studies, this one evaluates a 20 percent sample of the Canadian census , where same-sex couples have had access to all taxation and government benefits since 1997 and to marriage since 2005. While in the US Census same-sex households have to be guessed at based on the gender an...