Study: Growing Up in Gay Families Hamstrings Kids in School
A new Canadian study challenges the mainstream insistence that children living with same-sex couples are “no different” than children living with married, heterosexual couples. Using a large, nationally representative dataset, Canadian economist Douglas Allen found that young adult children of same-sex couples are 35 percent less likely to graduate from high school as young adult children of heterosexual married couples.
The study, published this month in the Review of the Economics of the Household, looked at a 20 percent sample of the 2006 Canadian census, which asked respondents to note whether they were raised by a lesbian couple, a gay couple, a married opposite-sex couple, a common law couple, a single mother, or a single father. The Canadian data is easier to interpret than similar U.S.-based studies because Canadian respondents self-report the information. Allen then compared high school...