Coming out in America: AIDS, Politics, and Cultural Change

Raquel Fernandez, Sahar Parsa and Martina Viarengo

No 25697, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The last few decades witnessed a dramatic change in public opinion towards gay people. This paper studies the hypothesis that the AIDS epidemic was a shock that changed the incentive to “come out” and that the ensuing process of mobilization and endogenous political process led to cultural transformation. We show that the process of change was discontinuous over time and present suggestive evidence that the 1992 presidential election followed by the “don't ask, don't tell” debate led to a change in attitudes. Using a difference-in-difference empirical strategy, we find that, in accordance with our hypothesis, the change in opinion was greater in states with higher AIDS rates. Our analysis suggests that if individuals in low-AIDS states had experienced the same average AIDS rate as a high-AIDS state, the change in their approval rate from the '70s to the '90s would have been 50 percent greater.

JEL-codes: J15 P16 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-pol and nep-soc
Note: LS POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Working Paper: Coming Out in America: AIDS, Politics, and Cultural Change (2019)
Working Paper: Coming Out in America: AIDS, Politics, and Cultural Change (2019)
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