Does Context Matter for Parenthood Desires of Lgb Individuals? A Comparison across Two Cohorts

Gioia Geremia, Center for Demographic Studies (Barcelona)
Diederik Boertien, Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED)

Do parenthood desires among LGB people change as parenthood becomes more available and socially accepted across cohorts? This paper aims to provide a first answer to this question by using data from HILDA to study cohort and gender differences in parenthood desires and realised fertility among LGB people. The analytical sample includes 68187 person-years, 2997 of which are reported by LGB people. The results confirm findings from previous literature, indicating lower parenthood desires for LGB people compared to heterosexual people. We observe differences between LG and bisexual people, where the former group displays lower parenthood desire. The inclusion of cohorts in the analysis provides several novel findings: while parenthood desires increased across cohorts for LG women, the share of respondents indicating a desire for children slightly decreased across cohorts for LG men. Moreover, we observe a larger share of LG women that have children in the younger cohort, while the opposite is found for LG men. Results for bisexual individuals are more complex and present substantial cohort variation only for men. The unprecedented focus of this paper on cohort differences provides novel insights to the current demographic debate on parenthood aspirations and on the life courses of the LGBTQ+ population.

Keywords: Fertility, Longitudinal studies , Gender Dynamics

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