A Google Images search for ‘happy family’ reveals a significant bias for white, two-parent homes. At the time of writing, 81 of the top 100 results feature white families and just one contains a single parent, The Next Web reports.
The top 100 results for ‘happy family’ are derived from a range of sources, including small business websites, national newspapers, blog articles and photo galleries. Over the years, many designers, marketers and publishers have inadvertently created a one-dimensional view of what a family looks like.
To understand the problem more thoroughly, you need to first consider where many online images originate. A quick reverse image search for the three photos in question traces them back to Getty Images, which has been supplying the press, ad agencies and bloggers with visual content since 1995.
If you perform the same “happy family” search on Getty, at the time of writing, 87 of the first 100 results feature white families, which makes it less diverse than Google Images. However, despite this, some of its competitors are even worse still.