Gay, Lesbian Families with Kids Favor Outer Boroughs
Gay City News
By Paul Schindler
August 28, 2008

In a study likely to garner interest among state legislators who represent portions of the city outside Manhattan, the Williams Institute reports that of the 26,000 New York City same-sex couples identified in the 2000 Census, those raising children live disproportionately outside Manhattan.

Advertisement While 38 percent of the city's same-sex couples live in Manhattan, 92 percent of the children raised by gay and lesbian couples live in one of the four outer boroughs. The borough-by-borough discrepancy is almost wholly explained by an anomalous flip between Manhattan and the Bronx in their comparative percentages of total same-sex couples and total children raised in gay or lesbian households.

Only 8.5 percent of all children raised in such families live in Manhattan, even though that borough makes up nearly 40 percent of the city's gay and lesbian couples. The Bronx, which has only 11 percent of the city's gay and lesbian couples, raises 32 percent of the children in those households citywide.

Nearly half of the same-sex couples in the Bronx are raising children, while less than five percent of those in Manhattan are.

The other three boroughs have roughly congruent percentages of the total of same-sex couples, and children raised by them. Brooklyn has 31.5 percent of the city's gay couples and 27 percent of the children raised by them; Queens, 20 and 22 percent, respectively; and Staten Island 3.5 percent of the couples and 5.7 percent of the children.

The study, released this week by the UCLA School of Law think tank on sexual orientation law and public policy, also found other stark differences in gay and lesbian-couple households across the five boroughs.

Fifty-eight percent of the same-sex couples in New York are male, but the ratio of male to female couples is three to one in Manhattan, roughly even in Queens and Staten Island, but female couples outnumber male couples in Brooklyn and the Bronx. More than 40 percent of the individuals in same-sex couples in the Bronx are Latino, the only borough where those in gay or lesbian couples are more likely to be non-white than those in married couples. Citywide, 55 percent of married people are non-white, but only 39 percent of those in same-sex couples are.

The demographics of some same-sex couples in New York reflect common beliefs about the affluence of gays in America. Men in same-sex couples earn more than married men ($63,966, on average, versus $52,699) and the same is true of women in same-sex couples ($45,424 versus $35,417 for married women). They are also better educated, with 58 percent having college degrees, versus 28 percent of marriage individuals.

But, it is clear that the numbers are skewed by the relatively affluent, childless, gay male couples in Manhattan. Even though gay men in couples earn less than their married male peers in Manhattan, same-sex couples when compared with married couples of a man and a woman in that borough earn more, on average - $154,521 versus $142,307.

But among same-sex couples raising children in the outer boroughs, family income is less than among married couples. In the Bronx, the average household income among married couples is $59,741; among all same-sex couples, $50,180; and among same-sex couples with children, only $43,736.

The disparity is even more striking in Staten Island. There, the average household income of married couples is $85,372; among same-sex couples as a whole, $75,443; but among same-sex couples with children, only $52,732.

The Empire State Pride Agenda, the state's LGBT rights lobby, took note of the economic disadvantages faced by same-sex couples raising children, most of them outside Manhattan.

"One emergency could mean disaster for one of these families simply because they don't have access to the protections the state provides to married families to help them weather a storm," Alan Van Capelle, the group's executive director, said in a written release.

Van Capelle then threaded the needle politically.

"Assemblymembers and state senators who represent these areas and are still trying to make up their minds about where they are on the issue of marriage equality need to look at this data and understand this directly affects families in their districts," he said. "They also need to realize that there are literally thousands of children who are depending on them to do the right thing and provide the legal protections that only marriage can give to their families."