Study: Children of Same-Sex Parents Much Less Likely to Graduate From High School

[Athanasiy]

In one of the first large-scale comparisons of the children of same-sex parents to other types of parenting, children raised by gay and lesbian couples were only 65 percent as likely to graduate from high school as those raised in traditional two-parent households, even after controlling for factors such as income and education of the parents.

The study, “High school graduation rates among children of same-sex households,” by Douglas W. Allen, professor of economics at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, was published in the newest edition of the journal, Review of Economics of the Household.

Unlike previous studies of same-sex parenting, Allen was able to conduct a large-scale side-by-side comparison of same-sex parenting to other family structures - such as single parents and unmarried opposite sex parents - using the 2006 Canadian census.

In Canada, same-sex couples have been recognized since 1997 and Canada has recognized same-sex marriages since 2005. Also, the Canadian census asks whether one’s parents were a same-sex couple and whether they were married or unmarried.

One of the most striking findings of the study was that the children of same-sex couples also had lower graduation rates than the children of single parents.

The study also found that daughters of same-sex parents had lower graduation rates than sons. And, daughters of gay couples, two men, have significantly worse graduation rates than the daughters of lesbians, two women. Among the sons of same-sex couples, the opposite is true - those with two dads are better off than those with two moms.

Previous social science studies have shown that the children of biological, intact, two-parent households perform significantly better on a wide range of measures, including graduation rates. But, same-sex parenting has proven difficult to study because reliable data requires large, random samples; and large, random samples typically do not have enough same-sex parents to draw conclusions about the population.

One other study that came close to Allen’s accomplishment was the 2012 New Family Structure Study, conducted by Mark Regnerus, associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Due to limitations with the sample, though, the NFSS had to collapse a number of categories, such as cohabiting same-sex parents, single gay parents, and parents who were in a heterosexual relationship divorced and entered a same-sex relationship. Allen’s study did not have that limitation.

In an article for The Witherspoon Institute’s Public Discourse, Regnerus says that Allen’s study has, like all studies, its own limitations. It does not, for instance, distinguish between same-sex married parents and same-sex common law marriage parents.

Regnerus believes, though, that those “limitations are modest in comparison to its remarkable and unique strengths - a rigorous and thorough analysis of a massive, nationally-representative dataset from a country whose government has long affirmed same-sex couples and parenting. It is as close to an ideal test as we’ve seen yet.”

The American Psychological Association and American Sociological Association have claimed that there are no differences between same-sex parenting and parenting with both a mom and a dad. That conclusion, though, was based upon studies that use small, non-random samples. Regnerus believes that Allen’s study should bring doubts to their conclusion.

“Might the American Psychological Association and American Sociological Association have been too confident and quick to declare ‘no differences’ in such a new arena of study, one marked by the consistent reliance upon small or nonrandom ‘convenience’ samples? Perhaps. Maybe a married mom and dad do matter, after all,” he wrote.

Read more at christianpost.com/news/study-children-of-same-sex-parents-much-less-likely-to-graduate-from-high-school-106213/#XbJjsdwoC2UQxewy.99

 

[MaryT777]

Interesting read. It seems it is always the children that suffer the most from adult decisions.

Mary.

 

[St_Francis]

It’s good that they are doing this research as quickly as they can.

 

[SuperLuigi]

It’s good that they are doing this research as quickly as they can.

I’m rather surprised it was even published. The gay “marriage” activists have been trying to head this off as much possible while reassuring us that so-called gay “marriage” is equal and good.

What it all boils down to is:

The American Psychological Association and American Sociological Association have claimed that there are no differences between same-sex parenting and parenting with both a mom and a dad. That conclusion, though, was based upon studies that use small, non-random samples. Regnerus believes that Allen’s study should bring doubts to their conclusion.

If researchers in my field didn’t do random sampling, it could mean that contaminated water goes unchecked.

See how important proper sampling is? Just think if water or air sampling were politically motivated…

As such, I doubt there will be much dissent on this thread. It will be ignored, just like they ignored Ishii’s link showing someone asking a bunch of Muslim bakeries to cater a gay “wedding” which all of them refused.

 

[China123]

The problem with studies is the sampling…on both sides of the fence. I think we can arrange results to fit the intended end result.

I actually know a lesbian couple that have raised 2 children (1 adopted and 1 natural by 1 female) and they have both graduated high school and 1 is in college.

We need more studies and good studies that will show what is what. I believe that children need and deserve parents of both sexes. Unfortunately, this has turned so ugly I wonder if this is all just a political mess and no one is really concerned about valid studies

 

[jilly4ski]

The problem with studies is the sampling…on both sides of the fence. I think we can arrange results to fit the intended end result.

I actually know a lesbian couple that have raised 2 children (1 adopted and 1 natural by 1 female) and they have both graduated high school and 1 is in college.

We need more studies and good studies that will show what is what. I believe that children need and deserve parents of both sexes. Unfortunately, this has turned so ugly I wonder if this is all just a political mess and no one is really concerned about valid studies

Anecdote does not a trend make. The study says that children in same sex households are 65% as likely to graduate from high school as those in opposite sex married household. That means for every 100 children in a opposite sex married household that graduate, 65 children in same sex household graduate. Those 65 have to come from somewhere. The children that you know of are luckily not part of the 35% who do not graduate.

Actually on second thought the analysis is more subtle than that as not 100% of children in opposite sex married households graduate high school. Thus they took a total population and found that even with whatever the graduation rates are for opposite sex married households, children of same sex households the rates of graduation are 35% lower.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Does the study count students who left school but got their GED as completing high school or not completing high school?

And does it have any analysis of why the students say they didn’t finish?

If I had to guess I would say that it’s because they’re more likely to drop out as a result of being bullied … which isn’t really their parents’ fault. If the problem was with a lack of a mother-figure or father-figure, wouldn’t you expect those numbers to be about the same in the single-parent condition?

Until someone looks at the “why” behind a finding like this, you can’t really say whether the problem is with same-sex parenting itself or whether it’s a problem with society’s reaction to same-sex parenting.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

P.S > Apparently the original poster missed this interesting factoid from the original research article:

" … while sons of gayparents are 61 % more likely to graduate."

That’s right – the study finding children of same-sex parents were less likely to graduate from high school also found that boys raised by two men are actually **MORE **likely to graduate than those raised in traditional households.

Of course, that’s immediately followed by this statement: “However, neither of these results are statistically significant.” Meaning that in a study of how boys’ and girls’ graduation rates are affected by living with same-sex parents, the numbers for boys showed no difference from those in traditional homes beyond what you’d expect from random sampling differences.

I.E – For boys, this study found absolutely nothing conclusive.

It did find a significant difference for girls. But even the study’s authors admit they don’t know why that is. This is the final paragraph of their conclusion:

“The question is: why? This study suggests** further work is necessary to narrow
down the source of this difference. **This will require an exceptional data set that not
only identifies sexual orientation of parents, but also has a retrospective or panel
design to completely control for marital history. A better data set would also be able
to test for the reasons behind any difference. An economist may be inclined to think
that fathers and mothers are not perfect substitutes and that there must be some
gains from a sexual division of labor in parenting. Others may suspect that children
of same-sex parents are more likely to be harassed at school, and therefore, less
likely to graduate. In any event, it is time to investigate the difference and reject the
conventional wisdom of ‘‘no difference.’’”

 

[QuasiCatholic]

P.P.S > Shame on the reporter at the Christian Post for cherry-picking data to present the story they wanted instead of the story the research article actually tells.

Not only did she exclude the bit about boys doing better when raised by gay men, and the bit about none of the statistics about boys (including the one she did use) being significant anyway, but she also says in her story that the outcomes with same-sex couples were worse than with single parents.

But I’m looking at the original data coefficient charts, and as far as I can tell gay parents actually did better than both single moms and single dads. It’s only lesbian couples who did worse.

 

[sailor28]

P.P.S > Shame on the reporter at the Christian Post for cherry-picking data to present the story they wanted instead of the story the research article actually tells.

Not only did she exclude the bit about boys doing better when raised by gay men, and the bit about none of the statistics about boys (including the one she did use) being significant anyway, but she also says in her story that the outcomes with same-sex couples were worse than with single parents.

But I’m looking at the original data coefficient charts, and as far as I can tell gay parents actually did better than both single moms and single dads. It’s only lesbian couples who did worse.

Yes, it is a shame when Christians misrepresent themselves to try to validate their own theories.

 

[EasterJoy]

If teaching your children falsehood instead of truth increased their SAT scores, guaranteed that they would pass the bar exam, relieved them of ever second-guessing anything they ever did and also gave them a euphoric feeling that followed them whereever they went, who would teach their child falsehood? Honestly, how many would rather see their child secure from material want and free of anxiety than to have anything else? Is that really the highest good?

I am not saying that it is not worthwhile to do sociological research concerning what effect different living situations have on people, regardless of their age or their stage of human development. Of course it is especially worthwhile to see whether or not the excuses people find for normalizing falsehood have any basis in fact. Having said that, even knowing the stresses that observing the moral law puts on us is knowledge worth having, provided we do not imagine that showing the moral law is difficult in some ways provides us with an excuse for departing from it.

I am saying that the moral law is not a human invention deduced from an empirical assessment of what combination of taboos and commandments gave the best results on some humanly-generated pro-con list.

What, after all, was the basis for the First Temptation?

The LORD God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” Gen 2:16-17

*But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. *Gen 3:4-6

Our fall from grace first came about because we want to decide for ourselves which of the commandments of God are worthwhile and which are not, what is valuable and what is not valuable, what we want to do and what we do not want to do. We should not imagine that there is some “proof” that can demonstrate the moral law to those who do not want to follow it or that formulating our own reasons for the wisdom of the moral law would render the moral law obsolete if we could not demonstrate our reasoning in support of moral law to be true or if someone could show us that our reasoning was faulty.

 

[EasterJoy]

Yes, it is a shame when Christians misrepresent themselves to try to validate their own theories.

The good is not served by twisting the truth, no. That is a temptation that must be avoided as much as we weak humans are capable of avoiding it.

 

[jilly4ski]

P.S > Apparently the original poster missed this interesting factoid from the original research article:

" … while sons of gayparents are 61 % more likely to graduate."

That’s right – the study finding children of same-sex parents were less likely to graduate from high school also found that boys raised by two men are actually **MORE **likely to graduate than those raised in traditional households.

Of course, that’s immediately followed by this statement: “However, neither of these results are statistically significant.” Meaning that in a study of how boys’ and girls’ graduation rates are affected by living with same-sex parents, the numbers for boys showed no difference from those in traditional homes beyond what you’d expect from random sampling differences.

I.E – For boys, this study found absolutely nothing conclusive.

It did find a significant difference for girls. But even the study’s authors admit they don’t know why that is. This is the final paragraph of their conclusion:

“The question is: why? This study suggests** further work is necessary to narrow
down the source of this difference. **This will require an exceptional data set that not
only identifies sexual orientation of parents, but also has a retrospective or panel
design to completely control for marital history. A better data set would also be able
to test for the reasons behind any difference. An economist may be inclined to think
that fathers and mothers are not perfect substitutes and that there must be some
gains from a sexual division of labor in parenting. Others may suspect that children
of same-sex parents are more likely to be harassed at school, and therefore, less
likely to graduate. In any event, it is time to investigate the difference and reject the
conventional wisdom of ‘‘no difference.’’”

Are you sure you read that right? How could children from same sex household as a whole graduate 35% less if Boys are 61% more likely to graduate (that would mean girls graduate 90+% less often. What I did read in the abstract is that boys from same sex households do “considerably” better than girls from same sex households, but I do not have access to the full study. You need a comparative label to make this 61% meaningful. Are they 61% more likely to graduate than girls from same sex households, or from everyone from opposite sex married households, or just 61% more likely than all boys to graduate. Please clarify, preferably with the full quote from the the article.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Interesting. Lots more research needed. The reason I believe this is significant (if it holds up to repeated, quality research), is that not graduating from High School, is generally indicative of brokenness. Not counting people with severe learning disabilities, you don’t see a lot of people fail to graduate high school, unless they are struggling with major dysfunction. I’m sure there are some - but it is much more rare nowadays than it used to be. So my first thought was - are there more psychological problems with children of same sex couples? Is that why they aren’t graduating?

Next question - did they account for adoption? I don’t know what the stats are on graduation rates of adopted kids vs. non-adopted kids, but I am assuming that same sex parents must have higher rates of having adopted children, and possibly also higher rates of having adopted older children. Which would increase the rates of children who have various special needs or psychological issues, stemming from their lives prior to adoption, and not necessarily after. Now in another 18 years, when kids who were adopted this year, reach adulthood, that stat may no longer be true, since it is much easier for same sex couples to adopt now then when it used to be, and therefore the profiles of the children are probably pretty similar to those being adopted by traditionally married couples. But for now, I would think that would have to be controlled for.

I only skimmed the article, but the description of it described that boys with 2 days fared better than boys with 2 moms, and that the opposite was true for girls. What about if you only compared boys with 2 dads with boys with moms and dads? Not sure if that was done, but I am curious to know those comparisons.

Also, Easter Joy’s point is a good one - we need to be careful not to get too excited about studies, as though there will be proof of a moral law based on something like this. Gay couples could end up raising the most highly educated kids and it still wouldn’t make it right. But I do think that studies like this that correspond with moral law, are helpful, in that they can make it more acceptable to question the status quo, and at least allow people to talk about the issue.

 

[EasterJoy]

Interesting. Lots more research needed. The reason I believe this is significant (if it holds up to repeated, quality research), is that not graduating from High School, is generally indicative of brokenness. Not counting people with severe learning disabilities, you don’t see a lot of people fail to graduate high school, unless they are struggling with major dysfunction. I’m sure there are some - but it is much more rare nowadays than it used to be. So my first thought was - are there more psychological problems with children of same sex couples? Is that why they aren’t graduating?

Next question - did they account for adoption? I don’t know what the stats are on graduation rates of adopted kids vs. non-adopted kids, but I am assuming that same sex parents must have higher rates of having adopted children, and possibly also higher rates of having adopted older children. Which would increase the rates of children who have various special needs or psychological issues, stemming from their lives prior to adoption, and not necessarily after. Now in another 18 years, when kids who were adopted this year, reach adulthood, that stat may no longer be true, since it is much easier for same sex couples to adopt now then when it used to be, and therefore the profiles of the children are probably pretty similar to those being adopted by traditionally married couples. But for now, I would think that would have to be controlled for.

I only skimmed the article, but the description of it described that boys with 2 days fared better than boys with 2 moms, and that the opposite was true for girls. What about if you only compared boys with 2 dads with boys with moms and dads? Not sure if that was done, but I am curious to know those comparisons.

Also, Easter Joy’s point is a good one - we need to be careful not to get too excited about studies, as though there will be proof of a moral law based on something like this. Gay couples could end up raising the most highly educated kids and it still wouldn’t make it right. But I do think that studies like this that correspond with moral law, are helpful, in that they can make it more acceptable to question the status quo, and at least allow people to talk about the issue.

Yes. Sometimes these studies demonstrate that keeping the commandments of the natural law is advantageous from a purely materialistic point of view. When the lawmakers–in our case, other voters, including Christians with a repugnance for putting their own moral sensibility on par with the sensibility of any other voter–make their decisions based on a purely materialistic basis, then we are stuck with taking a purely materialistic tack when arguing in the public square. Moral law is not arbitrary, so of course we will sometimes be able to demonstrate to those who do not accept moral law for its own sake that the law is sweet for reasons that even they cannot dispute. If their desires and values are disordered, however, then a moral law that aims to mold us away from twisting of our desires cannot deliver what is being demanded by those who will not let go of the wish to have their desires normalized.

The peril is that if we are not careful, we can come to believe that the truth lives within the same boundaries as those proposed by the materialists. It does not, and it puts our faith at great risk when we start believing that it ought to. The truth is not restricted to only those things that the most vision-handicapped can still see. If your standard is that you will put your faith only in those things that the most skeptical cannot help but accept, you have rejected the possibility of having any faith at all. You have become a skeptic yourself.

The same danger awaits any time we try to explain something from a viewpoint that rejects revealed truth as evidence: that is, we can ourselves start to doubt that revealed truth is “as real” or as legitimate as other kinds of evidence. We can forget that revealed truth is the actual gold standard, even if we cannot use it to reason with those who reject it.

 

[Athanasiy]

children don’t have no reason to lie about it. It’s their life experience and we need to listen to them.
jewsnews.co.il/2015/01/16/children-of-homosexuals-speak-out-against-same-sex-marriage-tell-of-unpleasant-upbringings/

 

[MaryT777]

children don’t have no reason to lie about it. It’s their life experience and we need to listen to them.
jewsnews.co.il/2015/01/16/children-of-homosexuals-speak-out-against-same-sex-marriage-tell-of-unpleasant-upbringings//QUOTE

Thanks for posting the link. Any such type of “negative” thoughts about SSM from children of such unions are usually quickly squelched by the media.

How many kids if asked would truly want two moms or two dads? Every child innately wants a mother and father. God made marriage for a man and a woman for he knows children do best in this environment

Mary.