New research from the London School of Economics reveals that gay men in couples earn around 6 per cent less than their straight counterparts and are more likely to be unemployed.

But the difference is reversed for women, with lesbians likely to earn 11 per cent more than straight women and be 12 per cent more likely to be employed.

The research appears in a paper authored by Reza Arabsheibani, Alan Marin and Jonathan Wadsworth, who aimed to discover if the 2003 legislation which prevents discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation had made a difference.

“Differentials of this magnitude could be observed before the legislation took hold and it is hard to conclude that the legislation has had much effect on these outcomes, though it may of course have other effects in the workplace,” says the paper.

The authors suggest that because lesbians are more likely to be graduates than straight women that a ‘graduate’ factor rather than a ‘gay’ factor could be influencing the pay differentials.

The paper can be found at: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/centrepiece/v11i1/arabsheibani_marin_wadsworth.pdf