LGBTQ+ Labor Market Outcomes
By Travis Campbell & Yana Van Der Meulen Rodgers
The emerging field of LGBTQ+ economics has convincingly demonstrated that LGBTQ+ individuals face distinct labor market disparities. This chapter provides an overview of their unfavorable labor market outcomes and then focuses on several specific issues for transgender workers. Previous studies show that gender-affirming care can improve mental health, whereas conversion therapy, which denies an individual’s gender identity, damages mental health. An unexplored question is whether these mental health effects extend to labor market outcomes. We apply regression analysis to data from the 2015 US Transgender Survey (USTS) to provide suggestive evidence that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is associated with improved labor market outcomes, while conversion therapy correlates with worse outcomes. These findings are consistent with HRT improving mental health and reducing perceived gender incongruence. In contrast, conversion therapy does the opposite and is also associated with more perceived discrimination in the workplace.
Source SSRN
