Gay and Professional: Earnings Differentials of Doctors and Lawyers based on Sexual Orientation

This study aims to investigate earnings differentials by sexual orientation in the professional labor markets, especially those of doctors, dentists, and lawyers using the 2000 U.S. Census 5 % Public Use Micro-data. The main focus is to observe whether homosexual doctors/dentists and lawyers earn less than their heterosexual counterparts, holding other factors that might influence one’s yearly salary constant. Additionally, this study attempts to examine the effect of antidiscrimination policies on gay and lesbian doctors and lawyers. For men, marital status, rather than sexual orientation, appears to be responsible for a large portion of earnings differentials between homosexual and heterosexual doctors/lawyers. There is no statistically significant difference between the earnings differentials of gay and heterosexual unmarried men, and both earn less than their married counterparts. For men, neither was a significant difference found between states that had policies banning sexual orientation employment discrimination and those that did not.. For women, the result is more interesting. Lesbian doctors are estimated to earn 9 percent less than both married and unmarried heterosexual female doctors. Lesbian lawyers, although the differential is insignificant across the country, are estimated to earn 9.8 percent less than their heterosexual counterparts in absence of antidiscrimination policies. Unlike their male counterparts, both lesbian doctors and lawyers appear to benefi