Das Williams Institute der University of California ist der Frage nachgegangen, was dran ist am Mythos der reichen schwulen Menschen.
Das Vorhaben gestaltete sich als schwierig, denn es ist nicht einfach, an geeignetes Datenmaterial zu kommen:
Finding appropriate data for studying poverty among LGB people is difficult for several reasons. First, few large surveys with representative samples collect information on sexual orientation and on income. This makes it hard to identify LGB people in these surveys and equally hard to define their families. Second, since we are interested in a small fraction of a relatively small group—poor and LGB—we need a survey of a very large sample to find enough such individuals to study.
Teilweise wurde auf Daten des us-amerikanischen Census Bureau zurückgegriffen.
Since 1990, the Census Bureau has allowed researchers to identity households that include same-sex ―unmarried partners.
Zunächst einmal war aber zu klären, was “unmarried partners” sind. Dazu bedurfte es mehrerer Studien:
Several studies suggest that people who have same-sex unmarried partners are very likely to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual (Black et al. 2000; Carpenter 2004; Gates and Ost 2004).
Bedauerlicherweise hat man dann im weiteren Verlauf homo- und bisexuelle Menschen in einen Topf geworfen.
Folgende Erkenntnisse fördert der Report des Williams Institute zu Tage:
In fact, existing research strongly hints at a sizable presence of LGBT people among the low end of the income distribution in the United States. Economic studies reveal that LGBT people can be found all along the income distribution—at the low end as well as the high end, with most in the middle, just as we see among the broader population. Studies of the impact of marriage have found higher rates of public assistance receipt among same-sex couples than among different-sex married couples (e.g. Badgett and Sears 2005; Badgett, Ho, and Sears 2006). Studies of youth homelessness find higher rates of being LGBT among the homeless than in the population over all (Ray 2006).
Als arm gilt:
In 2007, the poverty income threshold was $10,590 for a single person, $13,540 for a family of two and $21,203 for a family of four (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007).
Die Gründe für die Armut:
Many reasons suggest that LGBT people are at least as likely—and perhaps more likely—to experience poverty as are heterosexual people:
- LGBT people are vulnerable to employment discrimination, and they have no legal recourse in most states. (Badgett et al. 2007)
- Most same-sex couples are shut out of some institutions that enhance the economic position of families, such as marriage.
- Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely than heterosexuals to lack health insurance coverage, making them vulnerable to the economic consequences of a health crisis (Ash and Badgett 2006).
- LGBT families are less likely to receive family support, which could translate into greater economic vulnerability.
(Solomon, Rothblum, and Balsam 2004; Kurdek 2004)- Family conflict about coming out and violence in group homes results in high rates of homelessness for young LGBT people (Ray 2006).
Einzelheiten sind in dem vollständigen Report nachlesbar.
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