Same-Sex Partnering in Germany. Prevalence, Trends and Social Conditions

• Applicant: Dr. Andrea Lengerer
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270319014

The submitted project deals with same-sex couples in Germany. The social visibility as well as the societal and legal acceptance of same-sex couples has increased considerably over the past years and today they are even recorded in official statistics. Nevertheless they are rarely considered in social science research so far. Studies on the prevalence and demographic characteristics of same-sex couples are available predominantly for the US, whereas in Germany even basic empirical evidence is sparse. The planned project intends to advance the development of a new field of research. For the first time in the German context, the prevalence and trends of same-sex couples both over time and cohorts shall be described. Moreover, the formation of same-sex couples shall be examined. This will be done through the perspective of mate selection: the gender combination of partners is the dependent variable and the mechanisms which lead to the selection of a same-sex partner will be analyzed. This approach is guided by the assumption that the selection of the partner's sex is not only determined by the sexual orientation, but by social regularities as well. Furthermore the relationship between the gender combination and other characteristics of mate selection will be investigated. Finally the question to what extent the well-known criteria of mate selection are dependent on the choice of an opposite or same sex partner will be addressed. From a theoretical perspective, existing approaches to explain mate selection will be applied to the gender based mate selection and will be further developed to an integrative approach. Data from several years of the German Microcensus will be used and prepared for the empirical analysis. Although the Microcensus is limited in its applicability to the research question, it is the only representative data source available in Germany where same-sex cohabitations are included in sufficient quantity.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants