Data Dive: Same-sex parents in Mississippi

by Nigel Dent, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2022

The percentage of same-sex parents in Mississippi is higher than the nation at 25.7% in Mississippi versus 17.2% nationally, according to data from Movement Advancement Project and The Williams Institute. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the percentage of same-sex Mississippi households — with or without children — falls below the national average of 1.5%.

View the data on same-sex parents in the U.S. below. Find the full report on LGBT people in rural America here.

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Rural states tend to have more same-sex couples raising a family than urban states, as classified by MAP using Census data. Rural states in the Southern region of the U.S. include:

Percentage of same-sex couples raising children in rural Southern states

• Alabama — 20.4%
• Arkansas — 21.2%
• Georgia — 19.6%
• Kentucky — 18.5%
• Louisiana — 19.9%
• Mississippi — 25.7%
• North Carolina — 18.5%
• Oklahoma — 20.9%
• South Carolina — 18.9%
• Tennessee — 18.1%
• Texas — 19.8%
• Virginia — 16%
• West Virginia — 17.8%

Percentage of same-sex couples raising children in urban Southern states

• Delaware — 15.6%
• Florida — 13.3%
• Maryland — 20.3%
• District of Columbia (D.C.) — 8.7%

Conversely, urban states tend to have higher percentages of same-sex households overall, according to the Census Bureau's most recent data from 2019. There are just under one million same-sex coupled households in the country: 980,276 out of 66 million total coupled households.

Total Same-Sex Coupled Households in the U.S., 2019

Southern states that have a higher percentage of same-sex households than the country are Delaware and Florida, as well as D.C. View the data below:

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.