Study: Children of Same-Sex Parents Have Equal Advantage in School Progress

It’s always a bit annoying when scientific results come out stating something that seems obvious. “People are more likely to have healthy weights if they live in places where walking and cycling are more common,” for example. Here’s another: “Children of same-sex couples appear to have no inherent developmental disadvantage.”

The latter comes from Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld, who explains his findings in the latest issue of Demographics. (Thanks to Nan Hunter for the link.) While the results may be blindingly apparent to many of us (especially if we’ve read any of the other recent studies on children of same-sex parents), there are several reasons we should pay attention to this one.

Rosenfeld notes that many of the earlier studies have been criticized for using small samples. He therefore went for the biggest sample he could find: the U.S. Census, “the only nationally representative data set with a large enough sample of children raised by same-sex couples to allow for statistically powerful comparisons with children of other family types.”

He then looked at the children’s progress through primary school as a measure of child development. While he found that children of opposite-sex couples showed a slightly smaller chance of being held back a grade, it was because, “Heterosexual married couples are the most economically prosperous, the most likely to be white, and the most legally advantaged type of parents.” Once he factored in parental socioeconomic status, he concluded, “the disadvantage of children of same-sex couples (when compared with children of the most advantaged family group) is too small to be statistically significant.”

The biggest predictor of the rate of school progress, however, was whether a child had been in a group home. The odds of a child making normal progress through school were more than twice as high when he or she lives with a cohabitating couple — same- or opposite-sex — than in a group home. Rosenfeld stated:

Children not living in group quarters, including children in households headed by same-sex couples, are dramatically more likely to make normal progress through school than students living in group quarters. Any policy that would deny gay and lesbian parents the right to adopt or foster children would force some children to remain in group quarters. A longer stay in group quarters would seem to be contrary to the best interest of the children.

What gets children out of group homes, of course? Couples willing to foster and/or adopt. Yet one state, Florida, still bans adoption by all gay men and lesbians. Mississippi bans same-sex couples from adopting, and Arkansas, Michigan, and Utah ban unmarried couples (by definition, all same-sex couples). Nebraska, Utah, and Arkansas also ban unmarried cohabiting couples from fostering, and Nebraska bans single gay and lesbian people.

Rather than dismiss Rosenfeld’s study as jejune, therefore, we should make sure that every politician in the above states gets a copy.

Photo credit: Doug Wilson