The Use of Representative Data Sets to Study LGBT-Parent Families: Challenges, Advantages, and Opportunities

Abstract

Understandings of LGBT-parent families have been advanced in recent years through analyses of several important national and/or population-based data sources, yet many of the opportunities that currently exist have been unrealized. This chapter draws attention to these data sources with the hopes of prompting new research on LGBT-parent families. We consider two areas of conceptual and methodological complexity: study design and identifying LGBT-parent families. We then identify challenges when using existing large-scale data sets to study LGBT-parent families. Having discussed challenges, we then describe the advantages of using large-scale secondary data sets. In our discussion we review recent studies that have broken new ground with results that could only be achieved through the analysis of large-scale secondary data sources. Finally, we note some areas in the study of LGBT-parent families that have been particularly underexamined and for which the use of secondary data sources may provide important new possibilities. We anticipate that more large-scale data sets will include attention to LGBT-parent families, offering the potential to greatly advance our understandings of LGBT parents and their children.