For in-person attendees, the talk will be preceded by a light lunch at 12.15pm.

Please email comms@sociology.ox.ac.uk with any questions.

Abstract

Research on intergenerational mobility has largely focused on characteristics that siblings typically share, such as race, neighbourhood, and parental immigration status. Sexuality is different: it often varies between siblings, and it may shape both children's own life trajectories and the support they receive from their parents. Yet studying sexuality across generations has been hampered by data limitations, as information on sexuality is rarely available in large-scale, longitudinal data that link parents and children. 

In this paper, we develop a new measure of sexuality in Danish population-wide administrative registers, identifying cohabiting couples through shared financial commitments. This allows us to observe couples who never marry or have children together, a group that makes up a larger share of same-sex than different-sex couples. Linking adult children to their parents and siblings, we examine how parental income relates to children's earnings, education, family formation, and health, by sexuality. Drawing on minority stress theory and identity economics, we ask where parental resources offset the costs of deviating from heteronormative expectations, and where disadvantage compounds. Comparing siblings, we show that sexuality stratifies intergenerational mobility within families, not only between them.