Lesbians in the UK in 2024: What do we know?

The Lesbian Project is delighted to publish the first of six reviews of evidence about lesbian wellbeing by researchers Matilda Gosling and Diane Stoianov.

In what we believe to be a unique project of its kind, these researchers have reviewed hundreds of existing pieces of publicly available research in order to pull out information about lesbian wellbeing in the UK and beyond, building a picture of what is already known or hypothesised as well as where the gaps are.

The result is a fascinating series on life for lesbians in the UK today; but one which also indicates where future research is needed, as well as illuminating some important methodological issues hampering robust findings in research on lesbians specifically.

Demography

The first of our reviews covers Demography (statistics on a specific population).  We found that, for instance:

• At least 1.2% of women in the UK identify their sexual orientation as lesbian, and this proportion has been increasing for more than a decade.

• Lesbians are most likely to live in the North West and least likely to live in the East of England.

• At a local authority level, they are most likely to live in Brighton and Hove, and least likely to live in Harrow.

• The proportion of lesbians is highest in the 16-24 age bracket, falling to a tiny fraction (0.1%) of the over 75s.

• Lesbians are less likely to be religious than heterosexual women and more likely to be highly qualified than the general population.

Other findings, designated by our researchers as “likely to be true”, include that:

• Many older lesbians report being attracted to men when they were younger, and more than half of older lesbians were once married to a man.

• Friendships are central at all ages, and other women (often lesbians) act more as family than they do as friends for many lesbians. Older lesbians rely more on informal support networks than they do formal ones.

• Lesbians are less reliant on financial support from partners in old age than heterosexual women.

• Lesbians in the UK are not substantially more likely to be living in poverty than heterosexual women; they are more likely to be living in poverty if they have a disability and low education levels. Risks of poverty include poor mental and physical health, and engagement in survival sex.

• Lesbians have a similar chance of being an owner-occupier, but are less likely to live in expensive houses and more likely to live in socially rented accommodation than their heterosexual counterparts.

Limitations in existing research

Alongside our reviews, we are also publishing a Research Overview, detailing the approach taken by our researchers in compiling the evidence reviews and discussing important limitations they discovered on the robustness of research findings. This document is written to be read alongside our evidence reviews.

As the researchers conclude: “Even the highest-quality evidence – systematic reviews and meta-analyses – are often poor quality when they summarise data about lesbians, due to problems with the underlying studies that inform them.”

They identify several large issues with methodology, quality, and evidence gaps, meaning that it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about lesbians in the UK in many areas.

In future work, the Lesbian Project intends to lobby for better evidence-gathering about lesbian life, as well as commissioning independent research of its own (subject to funding).