Homophobic and Economic Precarity
Public Health Innovation Lab (PHiL) staff were part of a study recently published in Nature Human Behavior that characterized the impacts of homophobia on the well-being and economic status of gender diverse people across 153-countries. Relying on a three-dimension socioecological definition of homophobia – including family, community, and country – the authors found that the lowest rate of LGBTQ+ well-being were observed in North Africa, Eastern Europe, and West and Central Asia, consistent existing literature on the topic. However, regional variations reflect differences in social support and cultural differences within more local contexts. Further, economic precarity interacted significantly with homophobia and well-being. For example, across the study the weight of a country’s homophobic climate on well-being was nearly halved for LGBTQ+ individuals living comfortably on their present income. It also showed that the mitigating impacts of a social gradient operate consistently across national contexts, regardless of the inequality present in the country.
The study builds on existing literature regarding economic status, well-being and stigma operate across society. It shows that a social safety net and other redistributive mechanisms may not be sufficient to actively counterbalance the impact of a country’s homophobic climate on the well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Tomorrow PHiL staff will interview the first author of the study, Erik Lamontagne, to get more information about what this study means for working to address homophobia across the globe and the need for public health and technology to continue to partner to make work like this possible.
Cover Photo: Figure 2 from the study. Distribution of individual-level homophobic measures worldwide. The figure illustrates two socioecological dimensions of homophobia across the regions, the family and the community ones. The family dimension is measured with the proportions of participants facing homophobia at the family level. The community dimension has two measures: having been verbally insulted and having been physically assaulted. The values are based on the authors’ calculations using primary data from the Global LGBTQ+ Happiness Survey. The unit refers to survey participants, with n = 82,324. χ2(5) = 3.3 × 103, P < 0.001; χ2(5) = 1.4 × 103, P < 0.001; χ2(5) = 4.1 × 103, P < 0.001. All statistical tests were twosided. No adjustments were made for multiple.
