How do same-sex couples fare in the U.S. income distribution?

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the income distribution of families headed by same-sex and different-sex couples, both married and unmarried, in the United States. The analysis is undertaken in the actual economy and in a counterfactual in which all family types are alike in terms of education, race, age, presence of children, and geographical variables. Our analysis suggests that the sexual orientation wage disadvantage that men in same-sex couples experience coexists with a family income advantage (in both the actual and the counterfactual economy), which arises from the higher probability of two-earner couples among male same-sex couples and their gender wage advantage. However, these two features are not enough to protect male couples in the low tail of the income distribution, who have lower conditional earnings than married different-sex couple families do. As for female same-sex couple families, their position in the counterfactual income distribution seems to be strongly limited by the gender wage gap these women experience, which is not outweighed by the sexual orientation wage advantage they have and the higher probability of two-earner couples among these families.