A comparison of health and well-being between same-sex and different-sex parents: a systematic review and recommendations for future research

Abstract

Scientific research on the health and well-being of same-sex parent families has grown rapidly over the years. In this article, we conducted a systematic review to investigate whether parental health and well-being differ between same-sex and different-sex parent families. We searched the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and APA PsycInfo for empirical studies with original data that compared the health and well-being outcomes between same-sex and different-sex parents. Risk of bias was assessed using the risk of bias in non-randomized studies of interventions (ROBINS-I) tool. We included 46 studies that met our inclusion criteria. We synthesized the evidence of the included studies narratively. The results indicate that same-sex and different-sex parents do not differ on mental health, overall parenting stress, relationship quality, and overall social support. However, some studies show that same-sex parents have more postnatal depression, more parenting stress related to discrimination, and less support from their families compared to different-sex parents. On the other hand, same-sex parents have more support from their friends and a higher life satisfaction. We identify several directions for future research to study the health and well-being of same-sex parents.