1. Pink Papers
Dario Sansone
AEA Annual Meetings

2. 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

3. Research question
Labor market impact of SSM on gays and lesbians

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. Econometric framework

9. 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

10. Supreme Court decision only
Restrict time period
Same-sex couples
Male and female
(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

11. 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

12. Event study

13. 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

14. 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

15. SIPP: results

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Google Trends
Lower search intensity homophobic terms (Leviticus)

21. 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

22. 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

23. Review LGBT literature on my website
Thank you!
Review LGBT literature on my website
@SansoneEcon