• M. V. Lee Badgett's 1995 study using the General Social Survey found that gay men earned as much as 27% less than heterosexual men with the same education, experience, race, occupation, and geographic location. Lesbians who worked full-time also earned roughly the same as similar heterosexual women.
• Marieka Klawitter's and Victor Flatt's 1997 analysis of the 1990 Census data found almost identical results. Men in same-sex couples earned roughly 26% less than married men with the same education, geographic location, race, age, education, number of children, and disability status. Women in same-sex couples and married women showed no differences in earnings after taking those factors into account.

If some of the other surveys were analyzed in the same way, we might find similar results. For instance, the Yankelovich Monitor finds slightly higher average levels of education for the gay and lesbian samples, which suggests that gay people should earn more, on average. They do not, according to that survey's finding.

These estimated effects of discrimination might even be underestimates. The surveys do not ask whether the co-workers and employers knew that the gay individuals were gay. Lesbians and gay men who are "out of the closet" at work are likely to be the most vulnerable to discrimination. But the studies mix openly gay people with those who have not disclosed their sexual orientation, so the measured impact of discrimination on earnings will be diluted by the presence of those who are less vulnerable.

Finally the average incomes underestimate the devastating financial impact that discrimination can have on an individual gay worker who is arbitrarily fired. The average gay or lesbian worker might earn somewhat less than the average heterosexual worker, but the victim of anti-gay discrimination may earn much less than the average gay worker.

Implications for Public Policy

Given the evidence from numerous sources that employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people occurs and is economically harmful, state and federal governments could respond in several ways.

If they took no action they would leave gay people to fend for themselves, perhaps protecting themselves by concealing their sexual orientation. If discrimination hurts employers, some argue, then they will eventually stop it.

Much disagreement exists about how much pressure would be needed for employers to voluntarily end discrimination. Such a process could take decades, if it works at all. In the meantime, discrimination would be costly to the economy as a whole:

• Talented gay and lesbian people anticipating discrimination might choose to avoid certain kinds of jobs for which they were otherwise well suited.
• Employers who fire workers for being gay waste the valuable dollars they have spent hiring and training those workers.
• Witnessing acts of arbitrary discrimination might undermine the morale of all
  employees.
• Gay workers who fear discrimination might spend time and energy concealing their sexual orientation and avoiding contact with co-workers who are curious about their personal lives.²³ This reduces productivity in the workplace.

A more effective response would be to ban anti-gay discrimination. In other situations where discrimination has been shown to be harmful to individuals and to society, the U.S. has stepped in to forbid such arbitrary and harmful actions by employers. The economic arguments are equally compelling for outlawing workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. And a federal law such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, now before Congress, would remove the enormous disincentive for gay workers to file complaints under existing state and city nondiscrimination ordinances, where filing a complaint means becoming vulnerable to further discrimination in the many other jurisdictions that do not have such protections.

The need for laws against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is clear: without such laws, gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers will continue to be vulnerable to arbitrary actions that hurt them directly and ultimately hurt us all.

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NOTES:
23. For descriptions of this process, see James D. Woods, The Corporate Closet.  [ Go Back ]