US GAY MEN EARN 23% LESS THAN STRAIGHT MEN
A study has revealed that US gay male couples who live together earn 23 percent less than straight married men and nine percent less than straight men that live with a woman.
The report, by the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business and Economics, used information from over 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples gathered in a 2004 US census survey.
According to the study, pay discrimination against gay men is most common in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as construction and production.
“It was surprising to see how consistent it was that gay men tended to be more discriminated against in traditionally heterosexual male dominated professions — blue collar, labour, and management too,” researcher Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH, told Reuters.
Interestingly, the research found that lesbians do not appear to suffer from pay discrimination compared to heterosexual women.
“Employers could reasonably infer that a lesbian applicant or current employee will have a stronger attachment to the labour force than will a heterosexual woman,” the study’s authors said, explaining the heterosexual women are seen as being more likely to leave their jobs to have children.
Nice start…. Ok, nice start. Is there a pay difference between heterosexual men and women? If there is, is there a correlation with the pay gap that between the two types of men?
If these two turn out to be true, then I don’t think it’s homophobic in a true sense but rather sexist – that homosexual men are considered equal in status to woman (i.e. second class compared to heterosexual men) and are thus treated the same.