New research has revealed that children belonging to same-sex parents have similar educational achievements as their peers growing up in heterosexual households.
By mining data from the 2000 census of the United States, Michael Rosenfeld of Stanford University has found that children of homosexual and heterosexual couples do equally well in school.
According to the study, nearly 7% of children raised by heterosexual married couples were held back a year, while about 9.5% of children living with adults identifying themselves as same-sex partners repeated a grade.
The difference between the groups pretty much vanished when taking into account that the heterosexual couples were slightly more educated and wealthier than most homosexual parents, Rosenfeld said.
"The census data show that having parents who are the same gender is not in itself any disadvantage to children.
"Parents' income and education are the biggest indicators of a child's success. Family structure is a minor determinant," he said.
Rosenfeld's study showed that children of homosexual and married couples had lower grade-repetition rates than their peers raised by opposite-sex unmarried couples and single parents.
"My research makes clear that there is a huge advantage to kids to be out of the care of the state and into the care of any family, even if the family is not perfectly optimal," Rosenfeld said.
The findings were published in the journal Demography.
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