Research results

Are Professors Disproportionately Gay?

Gay men and lesbian women are disproportionately represented in academia, and are more likely to be professors than to enter many other occupations.

That's according to a recent study published in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly by a team of researchers investigating occupational segregation. Out of a list of 15 occupations in which both the proportion of gay men among male workers and the proportion of lesbians among female workers are above average, the researchers found postsecondary teacher ranks ninth.

Gay men and lesbians, the researchers hypothesize, tend to be concentrated in occupations that provide a "high degree of task independence" or require a "high level of social perceptiveness" – or, as is the case in academia, both.