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Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy 1/2022

11-01-2021

Class Foundations of Sexual Prejudice toward Gay and Lesbian People

Authors: Stef Adriaenssens, Jef Hendrickx, Johanna Holm

Published in: Sexuality Research and Social Policy | Issue 1/2022

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Abstract

Introduction

Sexual prejudice negatively affects the quality of life and life chances of those involved. Manual workers are consistently found to be less accepting of homosexuality in studies of sexual conformism. This can be seen as an application of Lipset’s ‘working class conformism’. Our core hypothesis is that this lower tolerance is rooted in working-class experiences. Counter-arguments are that that social class does not matter in contemporary society and that the relationship is spurious, with education as the true cause.

Methods

We test the central hypothesis with European survey data. First, we regress sexual prejudice on time trends and class with repeated cross-sections from the European Social Survey, ranging from 2002 to 2016. As an extra check, this is also applied to the European Values Study, going back to 1981. Further, we test the spuriousness argument with a matching design, testing whether stratification accounts for the lag.

Results

The time series shows a stable lag between working-class members and others against the general trend of decreasing sexual prejudice. The matching design provides evidence that working-class membership in itself is a factor behind differences in sexual prejudice.

Conclusions

Contrary to ‘death of class’ conjectures, working-class membership is related to sexual prejudice. This contribution shows that this gap is due to experiences of belonging to the working class and not solely to educational differences.

Policy Implications

Occupational experiences, especially in low-skill manual labour, have social effects in areas such as sexual prejudice. Improving the quality of work thus facilitates a more inclusive society for sexual minorities.

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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
We wish to thank the anonymous reviewer remarking this.
 
2
We wish to thank the anonymous reviewer for suggesting this counterargument.
 
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Metadata
Title
Class Foundations of Sexual Prejudice toward Gay and Lesbian People
Authors
Stef Adriaenssens
Jef Hendrickx
Johanna Holm
Publication date
11-01-2021
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Sexuality Research and Social Policy / Issue 1/2022
Print ISSN: 1868-9884
Electronic ISSN: 1553-6610
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-020-00525-y

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