Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DJB who wrote (1717)	9/10/1999 6:07:00 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 6418

I found a contradictory site that I thought I had posted. Oh well, here it is: members.tripod.com To date only one study has specifically attempted to find whether discrimination affects the incomes of gays and lesbians. Professor Lee Badgett of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland reported in the July 1995 issue of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review that data from the General Social Survey of 1989-91, a national random sample survey that asked about income and sexual behavior, showed that gay men's incomes ran 11% to 27% below average and lesbians' 12% to 30% below. Professor Badgett cites a 1988 survey of 191 employers in Anchorage, Alaska, in which 27% said they would not employ gays and lesbians, 26% said they would not promote them, and 18% said they would fire them. A review of 21 non-random surveys of self-identified gays and lesbians showed that between 16% and 46% reported having experienced some discrimination in employment. I am in a rush, and therefore I have not been able to digest it all, and will come back later. For now, I only want to say that this is the first contradiction I have seen.....

To: DJB who wrote (1717)	9/12/1999 7:33:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

I have now cleared my plate sufficiently to comment on the contradictory post I offered on the education/income question..... A reasonable estimate of gay men and lesbians in the U.S. population over 18 puts thenumber at 7% (Packaged Facts, 1994, p.45). The best estimates place the likely homosexual population at 2-3%, with an upward limit of five percent. I cannot reproduce the reasoning at this moment, but it is at least more controversial than indicated. This is significant as an indication of (understandable) bias in this article. For instance, the Simmons Market Bureau found in 1992 that the average income of gay men was $63,700. But this figure was based on inserts filled out by readers of major gay newspapers, a group likely to be better educated and more affluent than the average. An article in USA Today in 1993 estimated the average income of gay men's households at $57,000 and lesbian households at $45,000, based on 157,000 gay and lesbian couples who identified themselves on the 1990 Census. But only a small percentage of couples made this identification, and they may have been those who felt more financially secure. The self- selecting nature of the first study does make it somewhat dubious, but the reasoning that the readership of newspapers serving the gay community is likely to be more affluent is also dubious. The primary characteristic of such a readership is that it is likely to be uncloseted, which is the chief issue. This observation is even more important in the study based on census data, which should be more valid by drawing on fairly unskewed data. The criticism that they do not represent all of those who are gay is not altogether relevant, since they are likely to represent uncloseted gays, who are most likely to be subject to discrimination. On the other hand, the 1993 Yankelovitch representative survey found gay male households had average incomes of $37,400 (compared to $39,400 for heterosexuals) and lesbian households had average incomes of $34,800. The Yankelvitch survey is inadequately described, but two observations leap out: even supposing that the data was accurate, the discrepancy in the income of male homosexual incomes and the overall average is roughly within the usual order of unreliability (plus or minus 5%), and is therefore unimpressive. In the instance of lesbian households, one cannot disentangle women's pay issues from issues of sexual orientation. To date only one study has specifically attempted to find whether discrimination affects the incomes of gays and lesbians. Professor Lee Badgett of the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland reported in the July 1995 issue of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review that data from the General Social Survey of 1989-91, a national random sample survey that asked about income and sexual behavior, showed that gay men's incomes ran 11% to 27% below average and lesbians' 12% to 30% below. It is unclear why one should find this more reliable than the census survey, and it is also curious that the ranges are so broad. There is also an interesting question arising from changing mores: If young people are more likely to admit that they are in same sex relationships, that ought to lower the homosexual income average as compared to the overall average. The best that such a study can do, by itself, is muddy the water. Professor Badgett cites a 1988 survey of 191 employers in Anchorage, Alaska, in which 27% said they would not employ gays and lesbians, 26% said they would not promote them, and 18% said they would fire them. A review of 21 non-random surveys of self-identified gays and lesbians showed that between 16% and 46% reported having experienced some discrimination in employment. The Anchorage employer survey is not very reliable, since there is reason to question the typicality of Anchorage, and the very fact that it is cited seems a stretch. The self-reporting, by virtue of foregoing randomization, the strangely wide range of reported results, and the failure to define experiencing “some discrimination in employment”, is pretty much useless. Overall, I would say that the figures derived from the census study are supportable but controversial, and that more studies must be done.