Symbolism matters: The effect of same-sex marriage legalization on partnership stability

Shuai Chen and Jan C. van Ours

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2020, vol. 178, issue C, 44-58

Abstract: Registered partnership (RP) and marriage in the Netherlands are identical in terms of rights and obligations but may differ in symbolism. Exploiting same-sex marriage legalization (SSML) in the Netherlands as a policy shock, we investigate the effect of marital symbolism on partnership stability. Applying a mixed competing risks model to administrative micro-data, we disentangle selectivity into marriage from the effect of getting married. Our main finding is that partnerships that transformed into marriage had a substantially lower separation rate. We take this result as evidence of the symbolic effect of marriage stabilizing partnerships. We discuss economic mechanisms of marital symbolism related to marriage premiums.

Keywords: Same-sex marriage; Registered partnership; Separation; Duration analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 J12 J15 J16 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268120302432
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Symbolism Matters: The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization on Partnership Stability (2019)
Working Paper: Symbolism Matters: The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization on Partnership Stability (2019)
Working Paper: Symbolism Matters: The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization on Partnership Stability (2019)
Working Paper: Symbolism Matters: The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization on Partnership Stability (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:178:y:2020:i:c:p:44-58

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.07.021

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().