Bisexual employees don't make as much money as their straight counterparts, a new study finds.
Trenton Mize, a PhD candidate in sociology and statistics at Indiana University, theorized bisexual employees would face challenges in the labor market that go beyond those experienced by gay and lesbian employees.
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His findings appear to confirm his hypothesis. Bisexual men make 11 to 19 percent less than straight men in similar positions, he finds, while bisexual women make 7 to 28 percent less than straight women.
While more and more people have accepted that homosexuality is not a choice, as was commonly believed in past generations, the perception that bisexuality is a choice remains far more persistent, says Mize. As a result, he argues, bisexuals are regarded with greater suspicion and experience even greater prejudice than gay and lesbian workers.
Evidence on the effects of homophobia on pay is mixed. While gay men tend to make less than straight men, lesbians make more on average than straight women, research has shown. A study published last year found that straight men in Canada make 5 percent more than gay men, while straight women make 8 percent less than their lesbian counterparts.
That lesbians would make more than straight women makes sense when considering the fact that lesbians are less likely to leave the workforce to have children, even though same-sex parenting is on the rise.
Other differences in pay can be partially explained by the jobs people pursue. The Canada study found that while gay men and lesbians were more likely to have college degrees, they were also less likely to enter certain high-paying fields, such as engineering.
The pay disparity nearly disappeared, however, when the researchers focused on employees in the public sector, where hiring and wage-setting is governed by strict civil service rules and less on the discretion of a boss.
The rights of LGBT employees recently came up in a ruling from a federal judge finding that the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The decision stated that provision of the landmark law that bars discrimination based on sex also applies to anti-gay bias, which Judge Cathy Bissoon ruled was essentially a form of gender-based discrimination.
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