The Impact of Sexual Orientation Anti-discrimination Policies on the Wages of Lesbians and Gay Men

Abstract

Beginning in the 1970s, some US cities, counties, and states have adopted laws and policies that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. These policies follow in the path of similar protections targeted at race, sex, religion, national origin, and physical disability discrimination. These analyses use data from the United States Census (2000) to analyze the impact of state-level employment discrimination and antidiscrimination policies on the wages of men and women in samesex couples. Analyses consider differential policy effects for individuals by sex, age,
education, occupation, industry, and geography (urban/non-urban) as well as effects based on the time since implementation of policies. In states with a sexual orientation anti-discrimination policy, the analyses find a wage premium of approximately 3 percent for men in same-sex couples relative to other men and a wage premium of 0.3% for each year the policy has been in existence. Relative to all women, the findings suggest that the women in same-sex couples receive about a two percent wage premium if they live in a state with an anti-discrimination policy and earn approximately 0.3 percent more for each year of the policy was in effect.