A recent study by UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy reports that the Bronx is the most popular home among NYC boroughs for same-sex couples with children.
Despite being home to barely 11 percent of the city’s gay couples, according to coverage in the New York Post, the Bronx accounts for 32 percent of all children in the Big Apple being raised by gay or lesbian partners, the city’s highest rate.
Almost 50 percent of the reported 3,000 Bronx same-sex couples have children, according to the report. In the New York Times coverage of the study, Gary J. Gates, a demographer and a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute, cited the Bronx as one of few places “where the percent of same-sex couples raising children is virtually the same as different-sex couples raising children.” In the Bronx, 55 percent of married couples are raising children under 18, the Times reports.
This becomes an incredibly compelling study on its own, but where it really applies to communications and marketing is as reinforcement that LGBT demographics are changing. As we’ve stated in the past, not every gay or lesbian consumer is single and living in the heart of downtown. Past studies show that the suburbs are rich with same-sex couples with families, also.
So, as we reach out to same-sex couples – those with children and those without – we have to keep these trends in mind. It bears repeating that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to reaching our community or to categorizing our demographics. We not only have to recognize that, we also have to know the reports, studies and data that support them.
SUBSCRIBE