Traditionally women earn less than men. In fact I wrote about how $.25 can leave women millions short because of that gap. Yet, recent news from Wage GapTime magazine may indicate the opposite holds true for gays and lesbians.

According to a recent study:

…gay men who live together earn 23% less than married men, and 9% less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.

This doesn’t hold true for lesbians, however. The same study concludes:

While negative attitudes toward lesbians could affect them, lesbians may benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market to raise children than heterosexual women.

The story goes on to say:

So employers stereotype lesbians as being more committed to the job and not as likely to have kids. But why should gay men earn less? Three reasons, say the authors: bias by employers, bias by customers and fear of AIDS.

The author of this article on Time took the words right out of my mouth when she said :” I mean, really? Are employers so stupid? ” My thoughts exactly.

Now the study does indicate that the discrimination is most pronounced in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations. Even so, I would hope as a species that we’ve evolved at least a little bit since the caveman days.

Personally I can see some of the rationale with perceptions of lesbians being that they are more committed to their careers than their straight counterparts. Many are. And, the lack of children (for many, certainly not all) often means that career is the #1 focus for these professional women. As a result they tend to spend more time and effort cultivating this part of their life. However, regardless of perception, the study is only comparing lesbians to their heterosexual counterparts. And, we already know that women earn only a fraction of what men do. And, for a two woman household that is no small change:

Over the course of a 40 year career, using the average annual rate of return for the stock market between 1892 – 1997, 7%, Mrs and Mrs QQQ under-earn their friends by $5,783,175.90.

Perhaps what is most interesting to note is that perhaps the perception of gay men is more negative than that of lesbians. We often just group the efforts of the right wing and other discriminatory and inflamatory groups into one big chunk – “Gays or LGBT”. Or, maybe the simple fact that all these studies are based on Census and other data that relies on self-outing may be just wildly inaccurate and nonrepresentative. Gay Market News speaks to this fact in detail saying:

However their reporting may not always adequately address the research limitations of relying on Census research data — where lesbian and gay respondents are systemically underrepresented, as we discussed yesterday.

These problems are exacerbated when we consider that mainstream journalists rarely have the space, resources nor the freedom of reporting deadlines to allow them to accurately research and report on the nuances of all aspects of what lies behind reported data.

All this leads us back to the original question – who are we to believe? Is there any validity at all in these “studies” that get floated all around the media and beyond? Do gays and lesbians earn more or less than their straight counterparts? And, does anyone REALLY know.

What do you think of this recent study? What are your opinions on the way studies are conducted and data is gathered as it relates to our community? What impact does that have on your business or spending habits?

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Paula Gregorowicz is the Comfortable in Your Own Skin(tm) Coach and you can learn more at her website www.thepaulagcompany.com and blog www.coaching4lesbians.com .

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