Sexual Minorities and Inequality of Opportunity

Project Information

MINEQ

Grant agreement ID: 948557

DOI

10.3030/948557

Project closed

EC signature date 9 November 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 March 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 046 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 046 000,00

Coordinated by

CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS DEMOGRAFICOS
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MINEQ (Sexual Minorities and Inequality of Opportunity)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

A voluminous body of research has documented how LGBTQ* people experience discrimination and stigma in society. At the same time, we know surprisingly little about the extent to which these processes lead to different socioeconomic and family outcomes for sexual minorities. This project systematically documents cross-national and cross-temporal differences in the socioeconomic and family outcomes of sexual LGBTQ* people and investigate the conditions under which opportunities vary.
To achieve this goal, the project will innovate by exploiting information on sexual orientation and gender identity that have recently been incorporated in several large-scale representative surveys. This breakthrough allows the project to answer foundational questions regarding inequality of opportunity experienced by LGBTQ* people, on many occasions for the first time. For instance, the project will document social mobility patterns and the partnering dynamics of LGB individuals. The project will also study the outcomes of minority groups that have often been overlooked, such as bisexual individuals and LGBTQ* people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
The second part of the project consists of studying the mechanisms that pose obstacles for LGBTQ* people to attain outcomes in life. Can gender egalitarianism reduce inequality of opportunity experienced by LGBTQ* people? How large is the impact of hate crimes and legislation on the family life of LGBTQ* people? Contextual information on regional differences in attitudes, hate crimes and laws will be compiled and connected to surveys to document their relationship to socioeconomic achievements and the family life of LGBTQ* people.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project started by recruiting team members and involving affiliates with a variety of experiences and expertise. The main team members include: 1) the PI with expertise on relationships and inequality; 2) two postdoctoral researchers, one with extensive expertise on studying the LGBTQ* population and one with expertise on studying family life; 3) Three PhD students of which one focuses on the issue of incorporating gender identity into the project, whereas another works on the family lives of LGBTQ* people, and a third one on the socioeconomic outcomes of LGBTQ* people.
The team and affiliates are working on altogether 21 core articles that address a variety of topics. Many of them have to do with measurement issues that are essential to understand for the rest of the project. One of these is already published. Other papers have covered the first two main objectives of the project: documenting the socioeconomic outcomes and family lives of LGBTQ* people. Ten of these papers have been published whereas three others have been submitted for publication.
Some first important substantial results include: a) LGB people are generally higher educated across a variety of high-income countries, but this likely has to do with a strategy to accumulate resources to deal with future discrimination and challenges (e.g. earnings penalties, which have been observed by previous research and other articles of the project). b) younger cohorts of the LGB people are more likely to live with a partner but less likely to live with children during their lives as compared to older cohorts of LGB people in the UK, suggesting that major obstacles towards accessing alternative routes to parenthood still exist.
Besides the production of academic results, the project has also been involved in activities to connect researchers and create a place for research on sexual and gender diversity in quantitative social science research. We have established a fruitful exchange with a research group from Germany that has pioneered the collection of data on sexual orientation and gender identity in the German context. This resulted in them visiting our center in January 2023 and in September 2023 we visited them to exchange ideas, experiences, and construct plans to further expand the network. One of the tangible activities that has emerged from this collaboration is the creation of a monthly online LGBTQ* seminar where researchers across Europe present their work and exchange experiences working on the topic in quantitative social science. The MINEQ-project has also become the host of visiting researchers and interns working on the topic of sexual diversity.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Research regarding education and sexual diversity has so far been restricted to the US, and the publication on educational mobility in the leading European social stratification journal will help establish the topic of sexual diversity and inequality in Europe. The research regarding changes in partnering and parenthood are the first of its kind globally and give a first picture of demographic change and the family lives of LGB people. This is important to understand many other facets of LGB people’s lives including well-being, social support and health.
The remainder of the project will push research further by continuing to document inequalities in more socioeconomic outcomes, such as earnings, and different facets of family lives. A final step will be to look at how contextual factors, most importantly policies, relate to socioeconomic and family outcomes of LGBTQ people. For instance, what is the impact of the retraction (2013) and subsequent reinstalment (2021) of subsidies for assisted reproduction on the likelihood to become parents among women in same-sex couples in Spain?
Another important part of the progress that we are making in the project is due to the increasing availability of data sources that allow studying gender identity as well as sexual identities beyond LGB. Most existing datasets only allow looking at the latter, but we are now also producing estimates for individuals identifying as, for instance, queer or asexual. One PhD student dedicates their thesis to studying how gender identity relates to socioeconomic and demographic outcomes. These advancements are important because these parts of the LGBTQ* population are particularly disadvantaged in socioeconomic terms. In addition, including gender diversity in quantitative sociology has implications for many other parts of the field too

Co-residence with partners and children of LGB people by age (n=455)