Kids of same-sex parents perform better academically, according to study
According to a recently published study by researchers from the University of Oxford, kids raised by LGBTQ+ couples academically outperform their peers raised by straight couples, reports Raffy Ermac in The Advocate.
The study was conducted in the Netherlands (the first country to first legalize same-sex marria ge, the study notes), and according to its abstract, the data was pulled from 2,971 children with same-sex parents (2,786 lesbian couples and 185 gay male couples) and over a million children with different-sex parents who were followed from birth through their primary and secondary education, reports Ermac in The Advocate.
“Our results indicate that children raised by same-sex parents from birth outperform children raised by different-sex parents on standardized test scores at the end of primary education by about .14 standard deviations,” the summary reads. “By contrast, children who live with same-sex parents at a later date perform worse (albeit not significantly) on the test than children with different-sex parents, likely due to the negative influence of parental separation.”
“Same-sex parents are also very likely to be highly motivated to become parents given the procedures they have to undergo to have children.”
As UNILAD – a British Internet media company—points out, it’s worth noting that the families with LGBTQ+ parents are usually of a higher economic status than families raised by the average straight parents, and that income status played an important role throughout the study.
“Our study shows that socio-economic status is a major factor,” Oxford postdoctoral researcher and the study’s lead researcher Deni Mazrekaj told UNILAD. “We found that same-sex parents are often wealthier, older, and more educated than the typical different-sex couple. Same-sex couples often have to use expensive fertility treatments and adoption procedures to have a child, meaning they tend to have a high level of wealth.”
He continued: “However, once we controlled for [socio-economic status], the positive associations reduced, but remained positive. Thus it is likely that other factors also play a role, for instance, these are wanted pregnancies and same-sex parents are also very likely to be highly motivated to become parents given the procedures they have to undergo to have children.”
