Marital status, gender, and sexual orientation: Implications for employment hiring decisions.

Abstract

Marital status and sexual orientation discrimination has been largely underresearched and has not been researched using working professionals, or with the incorporation of sexual orientation, marital status, and gender interactions. Additionally, with the growing acceptance of same-sex relationships, marriages, and partnerships, the interaction of marital status (i.e., applicants with or without a spouse) and sexual orientation bias in the workplace needs to be examined. Our study used an experimental design that manipulated gender, marital status, and sexual orientation in interview simulations and examined participants’ (N 365 working adults) hiring decisions. A significant 3-way interaction was found such that single lesbian women received significantly higher ratings when compared with married lesbian women, and married heterosexual women received significantly higher ratings compared with single heterosexual women. The study revealed that sexual orientation interacted with marital status in women’s ratings, but not for men. This research updates current knowledge about discrimination in employment settings and provides updated information on a topic for which the existing research has been largely outdated and underresearched.