Gay Families Chose Outer Boroughs

An interesting survey from the Williams Institute shows that while 38% of NYC's gay couples live in Manhattan, almost all couples with children live in the outer boroughs.

While Manhattan's gay couples are hitting the city's hot nightclubs, their counterparts in The Bronx are more likely to be reading kids bedtime stories, a new survey has found. Despite being home to barely 11 percent of the city's gay couples, The Bronx accounts for 32 percent of all children in the Big Apple being raised by such partners, the city's highest rate.

In contrast, Manhattan's gay couples are much less likely to have kids. Just 8.5 percent of children in the city's same-sex households live in Manhattan, despite the borough having 38 percent of New York City's gay homes, according to a report from UCLA's Williams Institute.

Nearly half of The Bronx's gay households are raising kids - a rate that nearly matches the 55 percent of married straight couples in the borough who have children. "I've never seen any jurisdiction [in the United States] where those figures are that close," said Gary Gates, senior research fellow at the Williams Institute. Gates added that same-sex couples of ethnic minorities "are much more likely" than their white counterparts to have children, a factor that could explain The Bronx's higher rate of gay-household kids. Another factor is that in areas like The Bronx that have relatively low numbers of gay couples, such couples are much more likely to have children, he said.

You coulda fooled me, what with all those gay daddies pushing strollers through the Village.