Same-Sex, Same Families? Cross-National Differences in Support for Same-Sex and Single Parent Families

• In Event: 395 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Paper Session. Sexualities in Family Contexts

Abstract

Despite evidence of growing support for same-sex couples, nations continue to vary widely. Very little is known about the extent to which respondents embrace same-sex parents as equivalent to heterosexual parents, how this varies comparatively, what shapes differential support between individuals, and how a country’s political, cultural, and economic context explains variation in support. Further, changes in attitudes toward same-sex parents have paralleled a general movement away from nuclear, heterosexual families, making it unclear how support for same-sex parents is tied to respondents’ ideological and structural approaches to family. We address these issues with cross-sectional data from the 2012 ISSP. This unique data set allows us to compare individuals’ support for same-sex and single parent families with that of male-female parents across 36 nations. The results of hierarchical models show that respondents who are female, younger, more educated, and less religious have greater support for same-sex and single parents. However, some socio-demographic characteristics shape support differentially. For example, being female is tied to general support for non-traditional families, favoring single and same-sex parents equally, but being married is linked to an emphasis on traditional families, with a preference for two parents, regardless of sexuality. Among nations, those with stronger family rights for same-sex couples have higher levels of support, regardless of controls. Finally, cross-level interactions show that the effect of individual-level cleavages varies systematically across nations depending on the context of same-sex family rights. In other words, greater same-sex family rights can both enable and undermine individual cleavages.

Authors

• Catherine I. Bolzendahl, University of California-Irvine

• Simon Cheng, University of Connecticut

• Brian Powell, Indiana University