New study suggests mum and dad matter
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A recent Canadian study suggests that children from married opposite-sex parent homes fare better academically than children from same-sex parent homes.
Sample
The study, published in the journal Review of the Economics of the Household, analysed a large population-based sample.
It found that overall, children from same-sex parent homes are only around 65 per cent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples.
Unlike US-based studies, this one used a 20 per cent sample of the Canadian census, where taxation and government benefits have been available to same-sex couples since 1997 and marriage since 2005.
Graduation rate
Douglas Allen, author of the study, stated:
“…children of married opposite-sex families have a high graduation rate compared to the others; children of lesbian families have a very low graduation rate compared to the others; and the other four types [common law, gay, single mother, single father] are similar to each other and lie in between the married/lesbian extremes.”
Daughters
The study’s most significant finding was that daughters of gay parents not only displayed significantly low graduation rates, their graduation rates were the lowest out of all groups in the study.
On the poor graduation rates of girls from same-sex families, Allen says:
“…the particular gender mix of a same-sex household has a dramatic difference in the association with child graduation. Consider the case of girls. . . . Regardless of the controls and whether or not girls are currently living in a gay or lesbian household, the odds of graduating from high school are considerably lower than any other household type. Indeed, girls living in gay households are only 15 per cent as likely to graduate compared to girls from opposite sex married homes.”
Overall, according to this study, claims that there is equivalence between same-sex and opposite-sex households are challenged.
Read more about the study at: The Public Discourse
