Working Paper: NBER ID: w24651
Authors: Christopher Carpenter; Samuel T. Eppink; Gilbert Gonzales Jr.; Tara McKay
Abstract: We exploit variation in access to legal same-sex marriage (SSM) across states and time to provide novel evidence of its effects on marriage and health using data from the CDC BRFSS from 2000-2016, a period spanning the entire rollout of legal SSM across the United States. Our main approach is to relate changes in outcomes for individuals in same-sex households (SSH) [i.e., households with exactly two same-sex adults], which we show includes a substantial share of gay and lesbian couples, coincident with adoption of legal SSM in two-way fixed effects models. We find robust evidence that access to legal SSM significantly increased marriage take-up among men and women in SSH. We also find that legal SSM was associated with significant increases in health insurance, access to care, and utilization for men in SSH. Our results provide the first evidence that legal access to SSM improved health for adult gay men.
Keywords: same-sex marriage; health outcomes; marriage takeup; LGBT rights
JEL Codes: I1; K0
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Marriage takeup among men in SSH (J12) |
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Marriage takeup among women in SSH (J12) |
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Health insurance access for men in SSH (I13) |
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Healthcare utilization for men in SSH (I11) |
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Likelihood of having a checkup in the past year for men in SSH (I14) |
| Legal access to SSM (K36) | Marriage takeup among individuals in SSH (J12) |