Studies of children growing up with gay parents
New research led by Dr Deni Mazrekaj at Oxford’s Department of Sociology indicates that children raised by same-sex parents from birth perform better than children raised by different-sex parents in both primary and secondary education.
Published in the American Sociological Review, the study shows that children raised by same-sex couples out-perform their peers regardless of sex, ethnicity, or parental marital status. The research is based on unique administrative longitudinal facts from the Netherlands; the first country to legalize same-sex marriage nearly two decades ago.
Although widely used in policy debates, previous studies of children’s outcomes when raised by queer parents have mostly relied on small selective samples or those based on cross-sectional survey data. 'Our data includes the entire population of children born between 1998 and 2007, following the educational show of 2,971 children with same-sex parents and over a million children with different-sex parents from birth', explains Dr Mazrekaj. 'This is the first analyze to address how children who were actually raised by same-sex parents from birth perform in college while retaining a massive representa
Optimally, you’ve got the input from both [a mother and a father] and the children brought up in those circumstances are, as a cohort, finer off than those who are not.
… whether it’s in terms of health outcomes, mental health, physical health, whether it’s in terms of employment prospects, in terms of how this is generated from one generation to another, the social science evidence is overwhelmingly in one route in this regard. – Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, excerpts from an interview on Sky News, August 13, 2017.
Public campaigns for and against same-sex marriage have been heightened by the Turnbull government’s plan to conduct a $122 million voluntary postal survey asking the nation whether queer couples should be able to partner under Australian law.
Discussing his opposition to same-sex marriage during an interview on Sky News, Liberal MP Kevin Andrews said children who are brought up with a mother and a father “are, as a cohort, better off than those who are not”.
Andrews also said the “social science evidence is overwhelmingly in one direction in this regard”.
Let’s look at the research.
Checking the source
When asked for sources to help his statement
Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View
Between 1973 and 1990, when my beloved mother passed away, she and her female romantic partner raised me. They had separate houses but spent nearly all their weekends together, with me, in a trailer tucked discreetly in an RV park 50 minutes away from the town where we lived. As the youngest of my mother’s living children, I was the only youngster who experienced childhood without my father being around.
After my mother’s partner’s children had left for college, she moved into our home in town. I lived with both of them for the brief hour before my mother died at the age of 53. I was 19. In other words, I was the only child who experienced life under “gay parenting” as that term is understood today.
Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving toddler, finishing high university with straight A’s.
Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically distinct from everyone around you, in a fundamental way str
LGBTQ Parenting in the US
Family Formation and Stressors
- Overall, 47% of partnered LGBTQ parents are in a same-gender or transgender-inclusive partnership; however, the majority of cisgender lesbian/gay parents are vs. 10% of cisgender bisexual/queer parents.
- 78% of LGBTQ parents became parents through current or previous sexual relationships, 20% through stepparenthood, and 6% through adoption.
- Among parenting households, same-sex couples adopt (21%), foster (4%), and have stepchildren (17%) at significantly higher rates than different-sex couples (3%, 0.4%, 6%).
- Notably among parents, 24% of married lgbtq+ couples have adopted a child versus 3% of married different-sex couples.
- Approximately 35,000 same-sex couple parents own adopted children, and 6,000 are fostering children. The majority of these couples are married.
- Among all LGBTQ parents, approximately 57,000 are fostering children (1.4%). Less than half of these parents are married.
- Approximately 30% of LGBQ parents are not legally recognized or are unsure about their legal status as the parent/guardian of at least one child.
- 23% of LGBQ adults said it was very important to them to have children in the fu
Groundbreaking 38-year study offers infrequent perspective on children of lesbian parents
A comprehensive 38-year longitudinal study, The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, is the longest-running prospective study on offspring conceived via donor insemination (DI), beginning in 1986 when it was first made available to homosexual woman women.
Nanette Gartrell, a visiting distinguished scholar at Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, launched the research without grant support. At the time, national grants were unavailable for any studies related to LGBT subjects.
This study tracked the development from birth through adulthood for the offspring of 75 lesbian-parent families.
Esther Rothblum, professor emerita of women’s studies at SDSU, linked the study as a research collaborator during wave 6 of the research when the offspring were 25 years old.
Q&A WITH ESTHER ROTHBLUM
What prompted the study?
In the 1980s, there were significant prejudices against lesbian mothers. People often assumed that the children would face identity confusion, mental health issues, and be more likely to identify as gay or lesbian. This study's findings counter these as