A large majority of the respondents to the Privilege and Participation survey are heterosexual. As Figure 1 (above, using weighted data), more than nine in ten of them (93.6%) identify as such, whilst one in twenty-six (3.8%) identify as gay or lesbian, one in fifty-six (1.8%) as bisexual, and one in one hundred and forty-three (0.7%) as some other sexuality. Figure 2 (below, also using weighted data) shows that, together, those who identify as having a sexuality other than heterosexual make up around one in fifteen people (6.4%). According to the Office for National Statistics this is, if anything, an over-estimate of the number of people who identified as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or some other sexuality in Britain at the time. This over-representation of people with sexualities other than heterosexual is less dramatic than the under-representation of ethnic minority groups in the sample. Nevertheless, it further demonstrates that, whilst the sample is representative in terms of some key demographic traits (e.g. gender and region of residence) and political preferences (e.g. party vote at the last election) it also does not look like the population in other key respects.
| Variable name | back_so_mv |
| Number of cases | 1,359 |
| Number of categories | 4 |
| Categories to code as missing | None |
| Cases to code as missing | None |
| Recoded variable name | back_hs_bmv |
| Number of cases | 1,359 |
| Number of categories | 2 |
| New and old categories | The original four-category variables was recoded such that categories 2 (‘Gay or lesbian’), 3 (‘Bisexual’), and 4 (‘Other’) became category 0 (‘Other sexuality’) in the new variable, whilst category 1 (‘Heterosexual’) remained as such. |
Privilege and Participation 
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