This article reports a research finding that lesbians in Australia earn an unexplained
wage premium of 0%–13%, whereas gay men experience an unexplained negative
wage gap of 8%–18%. Based on data from the Australian household panel Household
Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia, the article is the first to establish these
gaps in Australia, and to examine the degree to which credence can be afforded
to claims that endowments such as personality traits may help explain such wage
differentials. Using ordinary least squares and Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition
methods, the study explicitly includes the battery of Big Five personality traits
in wage regressions and estimates the contribution of endowments and returns
to these traits. The finding is that personality traits and returns to them do not
differ along lines of sexual orientation. Gay men in particular suffer a substantial
unexplained wage penalty in the workplace. Such unexplained differences suggest
that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, though unlawful, may exist in
Australia.