Posted by Dale Carpenter:
Some caution about Census data on same-sex couples:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245536060
Yesterday [1]I posted some results from a new Census study comparing
married same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples, and
comparing both to unmarried same-sex couples. The study concluded that
in many significant ways -- including likelihood to be raising
children, income, home ownership, education, and race -- gay and
straight married couples were very similar, and unlike unmarried gay
couples. The study also furnished evidence for some surprises, like
the possibility that lesbian couples might be less likely to get
married (or consider themselves married) than gay male couples.
But there's a potential problem in at least some of the Census
numbers, which are inconsistent with some of the work done by
demographers who have studied same-sex couples. Gary Gates, a noted
demographer and researcher at UCLA (and a gay-marriage supporter),
writes in an email to me:
One of the take-aways from the [Census] report is that married
same-sex couples look quite a bit like their different-sex
counterparts. That may very well be true, but one reason for the
similarity is that it's quite possible that a very large portion of
the married same-sex couples are, in fact, different-sex married
couples who miscoded their sex. I've attached [2]a paper (presented
at the same session of the Population Association of America
conference as the Census paper) that describes the difficulties in
interpreting the married same-sex couple data.
From other work I've done, we know that married same-sex couples
are 2-to-1 female and that women are more likely than men to be in
a partnership. This isn't very consistent with the Census findings.
Our analyses suggest that the sex miscoding problem among married
different-sex couples creates more male same-sex couple miscodes
than female. That could explain the Census findings.
There are several other findings that are not consistent with
information we have about differences between cohabiting same-sex
couples who are or are not in legally recognized relationships. For
example, in [3]a paper I published recently in Demography (with
Christopher Carpenter), we show that those in registered domestic
partnerships (in CA) ["RDPs"] have higher income and education
levels and are more likely to be white than those who are not
registered. These are the same patterns we see among heterosexual
couples (comparing married v. unmarried) and contradict the Census
findings. We also find no evidence of higher rates of child-rearing
for those in RDPs in men and modest evidence of differences among
women. Granted, RDP and marriage are not the same, but folks should
be very cautious in interpreting the Census findings.
I think it's a very positive step that the Census released an
analysis of the same-sex spouses. But it's just a first step. Much
more work is needed to better understand who the married same-sex
couples are and how many are miscodes.
If Gates is right about the coding problems, the miscoding would have
skewed the results in favor of similarities since opposite-sex couples
would have been included in the "same-sex" data. So gay and straight
couples may be alike in many of the ways the Census Bureau suggested,
but the new Census data do not necessarily support that hypothesis. A
lot more work is needed, including more work based on the 2010 Census
itself. In the meantime, modesty and caution about this new Census
data are in order -- more modesty and caution than I used yesterday.
References
1.
file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/volokh/posts/volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245458695
2. http://paa2009.princeton.edu/abstractViewer.aspx?submissionId=90814
3.
http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/publications/DemogArticle_CarpenterGates_v2.pdf
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