EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

How accurately are household surveys measuring the LGBT population in Colombia? Evidence from a list experiment

Andrés Ham, Ángela Guarín and Juanita Ruiz

Labour Economics, 2024, vol. 87, issue C

Abstract: This paper studies whether household surveys precisely identify the LGBT population and are suitable to measure labor market discrimination in Colombia. We first quantify the size of the LGBT population and estimate labor market inequalities from these data, highlighting potential pitfalls from using this approach. We then present findings from a list experiment in the capital city of Bogotá. Results show that household surveys underestimate the size of the LGBT population and may yield biased estimates of labor market inequalities. While survey estimates range between 1 and 4 %, we find that LGBT individuals represent around 12–22 % of the total population. We find heterogeneous reporting by sex at birth, age groups, educational attainment, and marital status. Our findings suggest that while current measurement practices are a step forward for LGBTQ+ visibility, further steps are required before household surveys may be used to consistently estimate discrimination and guide policy responses to protect their welfare.

Keywords: LGBTQ+ population; Measurement; Discrimination; Household surveys; List experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D10 J10 J21 J70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537123001781
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:87:y:2024:i:c:s0927537123001781

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102503

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-23
Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:87:y:2024:i:c:s0927537123001781