Office for National Statistics study finds that 1.5 percent of adults identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual
A new study from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has found that 1.5% of the adult population in the UK identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, with younger people having a much higher representation than older groups.
The ONS Integrated Household Survey (IHS) study found that, in 2012, 1.5% of adults in the UK identified as either gay, lesbian or bisexual. Out of those, 2.6% of adults aged 16-24 identified as such, compared to only 0.4% of those aged 65 and over.
Out of those asked, 1.5% of men said they were gay while 0.7% of women identified with being gay or lesbian.
The IHS is the largest social survey produced by the ONS. The survey is comprised of a core suite of questions from current ONS household surveys and contains information from approximately 340,000 individual respondents – the biggest pool of UK social data after the census. Experimental statistics are new official statistics undergoing evaluation:they are published in order to involve customers and stakeholders in their development.
Recent census data from the US found that the cities with the highest concentrations of gay couples were Fort Lauderdale, with 2.8%, Seattle, with 2.6% and San Francisco with 2.5%.
Another US report this week found that 1.4% of Latino and Latina adults considered themselves LGBT.
The Integrated Household Survey, carried out by the Office for National Statistics, is the second largest after the census.
