Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination

This paper analyzes how the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. affected same-sex couples in the labor market by using data from the American Community Survey. Access to marriage led to amendments in tax, health insurance, and adoption laws that could have encouraged some same-sex partners to specialize in household production and decrease their labor supply. Nevertheless, estimates from a difference-in-difference model show that the individual and joint probabilities of being employed increased among same-sex couples. Additional evidence suggests that these changes in employment were driven by improvements in attitudes and lower discrimination against sexual minorities following the introduction of marriage equality. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.