Bisexual men paid 30% less than heterosexuals

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bisexual-men-paid-30-percent-less-than-heterosexualsWhile gays and lesbians in the UK are seeing greater equality in relation to their straight counterparts in the workplace, this doesn’t yet apply to bisexual men and women.

According to a new study, bisexual men in particular are paid around 30% less an hour on average than heterosexual men.

The same, however, doesn’t seem to apply to gay men and lesbians, who earn about the same as heterosexuals says the research, by Professor Alex Bryson, of UCL Institute of Education.

In an article in the journal Work, Employment and Society, run by the British Sociological Association, Professor Bryson analysed survey data on 20,000 employees in almost 2,000 workplaces in Britain. He found that:

  •  the average gross hourly earnings for bisexual men was £9.39, compared with £12.30 for heterosexual men, a gap of 31%.
  • the average hourly earnings for gay men was £13.33, £1.03 more than for heterosexual men.
  • the average hourly earnings for lesbians was £9.87, similar to the £9.97 earned by heterosexual women. In workplaces with an explicit equal opportunities policy on sexual orientation – around three-quarters of the total – the pay of lesbians was higher. In those without a specific policy, lesbians earned around 30% less.
  • the average hourly earnings for bisexual women was £9.58.

Professor Bryson then analysed the data to compare people of similar ages working in similar workplaces and jobs to get a better idea of the effect of sexuality alone.

He found what he called “sizeable” wage gaps still persisted and that the average hourly earnings for bisexual men was 20% less than for heterosexual men, even if the workplace with an explicit equal opportunities policy on sexual orientation.

This gap was found across workplaces and in different types of occupations, and it applied in London as well as non-metropolitan areas.

In discussing the main result, Professor Bryson said that qualitative evidence by other researchers showed that “the attitudes of both employers and employees towards bisexual employees lag behind the positive developments there have been with respect to perceptions of homosexual employees.”

He said that the finding that there was no significant wage gap between gay and heterosexual men was “in contrast to most previous research in this area”.

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