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Same-Sex Marriage, Employment and Discrimination Pink Work Same-Sex Marriage, Employment and Discrimination Dario Sansone Department of Economics Georgetown University Job Market Paper Saturday January 5th 2019

Research question Labor market impact of SSM on gays and lesbians

Motivation Almost unique example extension definition of marriage Past amendments marriage laws (unilateral divorce) led to substantial changes in labor market (Stevenson and Wolfers, 2006; Stevenson, 2007; Bargain et al., 2012) Significant portion of the U.S. population impacted (8.2% non- heterosexual among Millennials) Unclear direction effect ex-ante

Negative effect Intra-household specialization (Becker, 1991) Shifts in tax, health insurance (Dillender, 2015) and adoption laws Increase commitment (Badgett, 2009) SSM legalization could have led to negative reduction in employment among gays and lesbians

Positive effect Widespread antigay sentiments (Coffman et al. 2017). Gays and lesbians commonly experience discrimination (Plug and Berkhout, 2004; Carpenter, 2007; Drydakis, 2009) SSM legalization in Europe followed by improvement in attitudes towards sexual minorities (Aksoy et al., 2018) SSM affected attitudes and perceived social norms in the U.S. (Kreitzer et al., 2014; Bishin et al., 2016; Tankard and Paluck, 2017) SSM legalization reduced discrimination and increased labor supply and demand for gay and lesbian workers

Results Identification strategy: variations across U.S. states in the different timing of SSM (difference-in-difference) Data: American Community Survey (ACS) Same-sex couples identified by matching household heads with their same-sex spouses or unmarried partners Higher individual and joint probabilities of being employed among same-sex couples after SSM legalization

Econometric framework    

Main result: Both working 1: working couples 0: couples unemployed/out of the labor force/ only one works   Same-sex couples Male Female All (1) (2) (3) SSM legal 0.023** 0.024*** (0.011) (0.010) (0.008) Year FE  State FE State trends Individual controls State controls Observations 28,118 29,796 57,914 Number clusters 51 Average dep var 0.668 0.660 0.664 Adjusted R2 0.108 0.098 0.102

Supreme Court decision only Restrict time period   Same-sex couples Male and female 2008-16 2012-16 2014-16 (1) (2) (3) SSM legal 0.024*** 0.044*** 0.060*** (0.008) (0.014) (0.009) Year FE  State FE State trends Individual controls State controls Observations 57,914 35,991 23,242 Number clusters 51 Average dep var 0.664 0.662 0.666 Adjusted R2 0.102 0.105 0.110

Individual effect Individual increases for both partners Individuals   Individuals Head Partner (1) (2) SSM legal 0.018*** 0.012** (0.005) (0.006) Year FE  State FE State trends Individual controls State controls Observations 57,914 Number clusters 51 Average dep var 0.824 0.767 Adjusted R2 0.086 0.080

Event study  

Male and female same-sex couples Hours worked Increase also at the intensive margin   Male and female same-sex couples (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) HH hours Both 40h Both 30h HH gap LaborForce SSM legal 1.294*** 0.030*** 0.025*** -0.936*** 0.022*** (0.483) (0.008) (0.009) (0.340) (0.007) Year FE  State FE State trends Individual controls State controls Observations 57,815 57,914 Number clusters 51 Average dep var 69.40 0.461 0.612 15.40 0.732 Adjusted R2 0.151 0.078 0.097 0.020 0.123

Same-sex and opposite-sex couples Triple-difference     Same-sex and opposite-sex couples SSM legal * Same-sex couple 0.0153** (0.0062) State FE * Year FE  State FE * Same-sex couple Year FE * Same-sex couple Individual controls Observations 4,881,847 Number of clusters 51 Average dep var 0.577 Adjusted R2 0.084

SIPP: results

Shouldn’t the effect be negative? No increase in fertility no incentives to specialize

Discrimination Taste-based discrimination (Becker, 1957) Some employers dislike minority workers Consumers/co-workers prefer interact w/ heterosexual Statistical discrimination (Arrow 1973) Uncertainty about productivity: (perceived) average productivity of minority workers as predictor Social norms (Pȩski and Szentes, 2013) heterosexual employers discriminate minority workers because such behavior is tolerated and expected deviations are punished by other heterosexual individuals

Effect SSM on discrimination SSM shapes preferences and change attitudes among employers, workers and consumers As more homosexual workers hired or come out, employer adjust their expectations about their average productivity and variance Social norms affected and taken into account by employers Feedback mechanism: more gay and lesbian individuals participate in labor market given lower expected discrimination

Male and female same-sex couples Marital status Effect also for unmarried partners   Male and female same-sex couples (1) SSM legal 0.035** (0.014) Married -0.054*** (0.009) SSM legal * Married 0.024** Year FE  State FE State trends Individual controls State controls Observations 35,991 Number of clusters 51 Average dep var 0.662 Adjusted R2 0.107

Google Trends Lower search intensity homophobic terms (Leviticus)

Occupational segregation Less likely to work in female-dominated occupations   Male and female same-sex couples Share women > 0.5 Share women Self-Empl Head and Partner Head Employed (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) SSM legal -0.014** -0.019** -0.012* -0.006* -0.019*** (0.006) (0.009) (0.007) (0.003) Year FE  State FE Linear state trends Quadratic state trends Individual controls State controls Observations 106,230 54,124 92,135 56,633 Number of clusters 51 Average dep var 0.530 0.504 0.526 0.534 0.175 Adjusted R2 0.010 0.009 0.011 0.035

Conclusions SSM led to higher employment among same-sex couples SSM reduced discrimination towards sexual minorities, thus boosting employment Prejudiced attitudes towards LGBT can be reduced (Broockman and Kalla, 2016; Aksoy et al., 2018). Supreme court matters Economic rationale to marriage equality

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