Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we document and explore three alternative explanations for the sexual orientation wage gap: occupational sorting, human capital differences, and discrimination. We find lesbian women earn more than their heterosexual counterparts irrespective of marital...

A burgeoning literature has examined earnings inequalities associated with a minority sexual orientation, but far less is known about sexual orientation-based differences in access to workplace authority – in contrast to well-documented gender and race-specific differences. We provide the...

Most prior work on sexual orientation and labour market earnings has relied either on individual-level surveys with small samples of sexual minorities or has used large samples of same-sex couples. We use a large individual-level dataset that allows us to measure both constructs. We replicate...