Abstract
This study uses data from the American Community Survey to address three questions concerning the relationships between sexual orientation and self-employment. First, does the propensity of self-employment vary with sexual orientation? The study found that the individuals most likely to be self-employed were heterosexual men, followed by gay men, then lesbians, and lastly heterosexual women. Second, do the impacts of explanatory variables on the odds of being self-employed differ with sexual orientation? Multinomial logit estimation revealed that, in particular, the effects of married and unmarried partners’ income varied with the gender/sexual orientation group. Third, among employed individuals, does incidence of self-employment across occupations differ with sexual orientation? According to the analysis, heterosexual men showed a significantly higher incidence of self-employment than gay men in three occupation categories, while gay men had higher rates in two occupation groups. Lesbians had higher incidences of self-employment in all four occupation categories that exhibited significant sexual orientation differences among the women.
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Notes
Labor force behavior has traditionally differed for men and women (Blau et al. 2014). Furthermore, Chi-squared statistics were calculated to test whether (1) the intercepts and coefficients were the same for heterosexual and gay males, and (2) the intercepts and coefficients were the same for heterosexual females and lesbians. Both null hypotheses were overwhelmingly rejected. It was appropriate, therefore, to perform the analyses separately for the four groups.
This classification method has been used by numerous sexual orientation researchers working with US decennial census data. Because we are restricted to analyzing the behavior of individuals who are married or cohabitating, conclusions drawn may not apply to non-partnered individuals.
Unfortunately, the 2012 ACS did not indicate whether the individual lived in a metropolitan area.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics provides both an intermediate-level aggregation to 12 non-military occupation groups and a high-level aggregation to five non-military occupation groups (US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010). In order to gain the most insights while avoiding miniscule cells, a hybrid of these two aggregations was used. The occupation group, Military Specific Occupations, is not discussed, because this paper focused only on the civilian labor force.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Census Bureau staff members, Jamie Lewis and Daphne Lofquist, who provided information concerning the data set.
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Leppel, K. The incidence of self-employment by sexual orientation. Small Bus Econ 46, 347–363 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-016-9699-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-016-9699-8