Sample Errors Call into Question Conclusions Regarding Same-Sex Married Parents: A Comment on Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter??

Donald Sullins

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3143798

Abstract

Because of classification errors reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, an estimated 42 % of the same-sex married partners in the sample for this study are misclassified different-sex married partners, thus calling into question findings regarding same-sex married parents. Including biological parentage as a control variable suppresses same-sex/different-sex differences, thus obscuring the data error. Parentage is not appropriate as a control because it correlates nearly perfectly (.97, gamma) with the same-sex/different-sex distinction and is invariant for the category of joint biological parents.

Highlights

In the study “Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?,” Reczek and colleagues presented a well-constructed analysis of health measures from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for children with parents in four union statuses: same-sex married, same-sex cohabiting, different-sex married, and different-sex cohabiting (Reczek et al 2016)
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which administers the NHIS, has advised that for a substantial proportion of the data included in the sample, a large majority of the cases classed as same-sex married partners are believed to be misclassified different-sex married
Rather than fitting a proportional odds ratio to all four categories, as did Reczek et al, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) morbidity and prevalence reports combined the top two categories into “serious” difficulties, which is contrasted with the combined bottom two categories using binary logistic regression models (Blackwell 2010; Pastor et al 2012)

Summary

Introduction

In the study “Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?,” Reczek and colleagues presented a well-constructed analysis of health measures from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for children with parents in four union statuses: same-sex married, same-sex cohabiting, different-sex married, and different-sex cohabiting (Reczek et al 2016). Reczek et al (2016) reported that their same-sex married parents analysis sample consisted of 216 cases from 2004–2013 combined data, which included approximately 117 cases from the embargoed period.

Results

Conclusion