The death of marriage? The effects of new forms of legal recognition on marriage rates in the United States.
Some conservative groups argue that allowing same-sex couples to marry reduces the value of marriage to opposite-sex couples. This article examines how changes in U.S. legal recognition laws occurring between 1995 and 2010 designed to include same-sex couples have altered marriage rates in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences strategy that compares how marriage rates change after legal recognition in U.S. states that alter legal recognition versus states that do not, I find no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry reduces the opposite-sex marriage rate. Although the opposite-sex marriage rate is unaffected by same-sex couples marrying, it decreases when domestic partnerships are available to opposite-sex couples.
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 300 S. Westnedge Ave., Kalamazoo, MI, 49007-4686, USA, dillender@upjohn.org.
Marcus
M
Dillender
D005260:Female; D020010:Heterosexuality; D018452:Homosexuality, Female; D018451:Homosexuality, Male; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States