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

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  • Fernández, Raquel
  • Parsa, Sahar
  • Viarengo, Martina

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.

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  • Fernández, Raquel & Parsa, Sahar & Viarengo, Martina, 2019. "Coming Out in America: AIDS, Politics, and Cultural Change," CEPR Discussion Papers 13749, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13749
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    Cited by:

    1. Avner Seror & Rohit Ticku, 2021. "Legalized Same-Sex Marriage and Coming Out in America: Evidence from Catholic Seminaries," Working Papers halshs-03202104, HAL.
    2. Mansour, Hani & Rees, Daniel I. & Reeves, James, 2020. "Voting and Political Participation in the Aftermath of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic," IZA Discussion Papers 13442, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Brodeur, Abel & Haddad, Joanne, 2021. "Institutions, attitudes and LGBT: Evidence from the gold rush," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 92-110.
    4. Barbara Boelmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2020. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," Working Papers 914, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    5. De Haas, Ralph & Baranov, Victoria & Grosjean, Pauline, 2020. "Male-biased Sex Ratios and Masculinity Norms: Evidence from Australia's Colonial Past," CEPR Discussion Papers 14493, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Simon Haenni & Guilherme Lichand, 2020. "Harming to signal: child marriage vs. public donations in Malawi," IEW - Working Papers 348, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich, revised Mar 2021.
    7. Nicholas W. Papageorge, 2021. "Modeling Behavior during a Pandemic: Using HIV as an Historical Analogy," NBER Working Papers 28898, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Boelmann, Barbara & Raute, Anna & Schönberg, Uta, 2020. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," IAB-Discussion Paper 202030, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    9. Alexander Cardazzi & Joshua Martin & Zachary Rodriguez, 2021. "Information Avoidance and Celebrity Exposure: The Effect of "Magic" Johnson on AIDS Diagnoses and Mortality in the U.S," Working Papers 21-04, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    10. Sugiyama, Yuri, 2022. "Can Soft Law Improve the Welfare of Sexual Minorities? The Case of Same-sex Partnership Policy in Japan," CEI Working Paper Series 2022-06, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    11. Nathan Nunn, 2020. "History as Evolution," NBER Working Papers 27706, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Hani Mansour & Daniel I. Rees & James M. Reeves, 2020. "Voting and Political Participation in the Aftermath of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic," NBER Working Papers 27504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gulesci, Selim & Lombardi, María & Ramos, Alejandra, 2023. "Telenovelas and Attitudes toward the LGBTIQ Community in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12676, Inter-American Development Bank.
    14. Valentín Figueroa & Vasiliki Fouka, 2023. "Structural Transformation and Value Change: The British Abolitionist Movement," CESifo Working Paper Series 10662, CESifo.
    15. Elizabeth U. Cascio & Na'ama Shenhav, 2020. "A Century of the American Woman Voter: Sex Gaps in Political Participation, Preferences, and Partisanship since Women's Enfranchisement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 24-48, Spring.
    16. Barbara Boelmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2020. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2020, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    17. Hani Mansour & Daniel I. Rees & James Reeves, 2020. "Voting and Political Participation in the Aftermath of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 8433, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cultural change; Aids epidemic; Lgbt attitudes; Public opinion; Party politics; Presidential elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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