LGB Employment Trajectories: Sexual Identity, the School-to-Work Transition and Early Employment

Bob Langereis , Centre for Demographic Studies, Barcelona (CED)

Sexual identity is increasingly recognized as shaping opportunities across the life-course, affecting events, decisions and turning points. In the labour market, lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals are known to have distinct distributions, experiences and outcomes compared to heterosexuals. Discrimination prevails and non-heterosexual workers experience structural earning penalties. These penalties are contradictory as LGBs are more often highly educated; raising questions about how and when earnings penalties emerge in their employment trajectories. However, no study has looked at LGB employment trajectories from a life course perspective. To this end, I will examine LGB school-to-work transitions and early employment, and ask the research question: What are the early employment trajectories of LGB individuals and how do these compare with those of heterosexuals? I use representative and longitudinal data from the UK Understanding Society survey, containing economic activity and sexual identity information. With a sample of fifty thousand respondents, of which 1,604 are LGB, I will use sequence analysis to describe the order, timing and duration of economic activity states between the ages 18 to 35. Preliminary results suggest LGB differences to mainly emerge after finishing schooling. Substantially higher shares of LGB persons experience unemployment compared to heterosexuals, with an astonishing 40% of bisexual men ever being unemployed—a share double that of heterosexual men. Indicating that experiences of unemployment during the school-to-work transition could be an important reason why LGBs, although higher educated, earn less than heterosexuals.

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 Presented in Session 72. LGBTQIA+ Life Course Transitions and Trajectories