Study to define gay families

Study to define gay families

Victoria’s Family Centre has launched the country’s first major study into gay and lesbian parenting and families -” and they are looking for your input. Entitled Work, Love and Play in Diverse Family Life, researchers will look at ways in which gay- and lesbian-headed families negotiate the various aspects of raising a family.

Most previous research on lesbian and gay parenting has focused on child outcomes. While that is obviously important research, the focus of this study is on the family as a whole, researcher Dr Amaryll Perlesz said.

We will be looking at the positive aspects of everyday family life for gay and lesbian parents and their children, such as the extent to which same-sex parents negotiate household tasks on an egalitarian basis.

Now in its preliminary stage, researchers are looking to families in the community to provide feedback on a survey. Once completed, this information will be compared to the outcomes shown in the Growing up in Australia study being conducted by the Australian Family Institute.

The benefit of this is that we will be able to compare what we know about the formal and informal support networks available to heterosexual-headed families with those of same-sex-headed families, Perlesz said.

We will learn more about whether lesbians and gay men receive adequate parenting support within their local communities.

The survey is available now and researchers are keen to hear from any active parents from the GLBT community whose children are under the age of 18.

info: The survey is now available online at www.thissurvey.com/bouverie

5 responses to “Study to define gay families”

  1. Gay men and lesbians are excellent parents, better that some heterosexual parents I personally know. Gay men and lesbians should be 100 percent equal in adoption, surrogacy, IVF, assisted reprodictive technology [ART], foster parenting, marriage, relationship registories, etc.

  2. That is easy to define. It is the same as heterosexual couples, only two people of the same-sex in a loving relationship. 20 percent of lesbians have children and about 5 percent of gay men have children as well.