Statistics - same-sex
relationships and homosexuality
Up-to-date information on key areas . . .
1. Number of homosexuals in Australia
Nationwide figure - 1.2% of adults identify as homosexual or lesbian.
* 1.6% of adult men identified as homosexual and 0.8% of women as
lesbian.
* 1.4% of women and 0.9% of men said they were bisexual.
Source: The 2003 'Sex in Australia' survey of 20,000
people, with a special weighting to Sydney's homosexual centre. Conducted by the
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe
University. Published in Australian & NZ Journal of Public Health, Vol 27 No
2 2003 ISSN 1326 0200.
CANADA – (as comparison)
1.3% of men and 0.7% of women considered
themselves homosexual.
0.9% of women, compared with 0.6% of men, said they
were bisexual.
Source: Canadian Community Health Survey,
June 2004. A Canadian government survey of 83,000 people. Ref:
Statistics Canada. Click here.
2. Number of homosexual “couples"
Same
sex couples make up 0.46 % of all couples in Australia.
(19,594 couples, 2001 census)
The 2001 census showed that over 8 million
men and women were living as partners in couple relationships and that 12% of
these were ‘de facto married’.
Ten years prior the 1991 census indicated
that around 7.2 million men and women were living as partners in couple
relationships and that 8% of these were de facto married.
Same sex couples
make up 0.46 % of all couples (2001).
Source: 3310.0
Marriages and Divorces, Australia, Nov 2003, Australian Bureau of
Statistics. Click here.
Sweden and Norway
Statistics for Sweden show only 0.55%
of couples are same-sex and in Norway 0.68%.
UK
In the UK, the latest census shows 10.3 million
married couples, 2 million heterosexual de facto couples and 39,261 same-sex
couples. This gives 0.318% of all couples are homosexual couples.
[The Times, 4 Feb 2004]
3. Homosexual marriage and ‘civil union’
relationships
In The Netherlands, where same sex couples
are allowed to ‘marry’, a recent study published in
AIDS magazine, found that the average length of a
relationship between two men is 1.5 years. In addition the
study found that they have eight other ‘partners’ each year.
Source: Lifesite. Click here.
The Netherlands
Official statistics from The Netherlands
government show that few homosexuals actually get married. “Another important
change in formal union behaviour in The Netherlands is the fact that homosexuals
may not get married. This has been legal since 2001. … The number of homosexual
marriage is still small; in 2002 just under 1,000 marriages between two men and
fewer still between two women were registered.”
‘Economic
circumstances and union dissolution in the 1990s in The
Netherlands’
,
Dr D Manting and Dr D Loeve, Statistics Netherlands.
Scandinavia
In 'homosexual-friendly’ Scandinavian
countries, where same-sex ‘civil union’ type relationships have existed for 10
years, male-male union breakdown (‘divorce’) is 50% higher than heterosexual
unions. For female-female coupling the breakdown figure is 170% higher.
Source: Deathblow to Marriage, Kurtz, National
Review.
Click here.
Homosexual relationships in Australia
These figures are taken from studies done by the National Centre
in HIV Social Research at The University of New South Wales.
From the
Melbourne Gay Community Periodic Survey (MCGPS)
Regular
Partners
MGCPS (Feb. 2000) interviewed homosexual men at Melbourne’s
midsumma carnival and homosexual venues and found that:
27.6% of homosexual
men say they have ‘only regular’ partners,
35.1% have regular PLUS casual
and 24.4 % have only casual sex.
70.3% said they had sexual contact with
casual partners in previous 6 months
Number of Sex Partners
(MGCPS Feb. 2000) When questioned about the
number of sex partners in the previous six months:
One - 20.7 %,
2 to 10 - 39
%, 11 to 50 -
26.2 %, Over 50 - 7.8 %
Thus 73 % have had more than one partner in the
previous six months.
Length of Relationships
Changed in previous six months - 40.4
%, 6 mths to 1year 9.8 %, 1 to 2 yrs - 18.8 %,
3 to 5 years
- 15.3%, over 5 years - 15.7 %
Therefore 50% lasted less than one year and 68% lasted less than 2
years.
(Includes data from ‘Men and Sexual Health’, by the National Centre in
HIV Social Research, 1997) Author: Jenny Stokes | Modified: 31 January 2008 |
