The big LGBTQ+ wage gap problem

The big LGBTQ+ wage gap problem Getty Images Research shows LGBTQ+ workers encounter a startling earnings gap in employment. Getty Images A decade after graduation, college-educated workers in the US who self-identify as LGBTQ+ earn 22% less than their heterosexual cisgender counterparts The impact of early choices University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Marc Folch, who authored the paper about US college graduates, believes the earnings gap begins with educational and professional choices workers make long before they consider an application for their first job. Getty Images Research shows the pattern of lower earnings across LGBTQ+ workers is set in motion long before people are established in the workplace Across the course of their careers, almost half of the workers surveyed said they had experienced employment bias – findings echoed in Folch’s study. “In the US, for example, in states that legalised same sex marriage, there was a positive impact on labour force participation of LGBT people – and the likely mechanism for that was less discrimination and less prejudice.” Going deeper, enshrining anti-discrimination policies by law can effectively narrow the LGBTQ+ pay gap in the workplace.