IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/26364.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marriage Equality Laws and Youth Suicidal Behaviors

Author

Listed:
  • D. Mark Anderson
  • Kyutaro Matsuzawa
  • Joseph J. Sabia

Abstract

Since the landmark ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in 2004, the legalization of same-sex marriage (SSM) has proliferated throughout the United States via either legislative action or court order. Advocates of SSM laws argue that marriage equality will generate important health benefits not only for adult same-sex couples, but also for LGBQ-identifying youths. Using data from the State Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, we explore the relationship between marriage equality and suicidal behaviors among LGBQ-identifying youths. Despite previous research suggesting otherwise, we find little evidence that SSM laws have reduced suicide attempts among teen sexual minorities, nor have they decreased the likelihood of suicide planning, suicide ideation, or depression. Instead, we find some evidence that SSM legalization via judicial mandate is associated with worse mental health for these individuals, consistent with a story of social backlash.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Mark Anderson & Kyutaro Matsuzawa & Joseph J. Sabia, 2019. "Marriage Equality Laws and Youth Suicidal Behaviors," NBER Working Papers 26364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26364
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w26364.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aksoy, Cevat G. & Carpenter, Christopher S. & De Haas, Ralph & Tran, Kevin D., 2020. "Do laws shape attitudes? Evidence from same-sex relationship recognition policies in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    3. Douglas W. Allen & Joseph Price, 2015. "Same-Sex Marriage and Negative Externalities: A Critique, Replication, and Correction of Langbein and Yost," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 12(2), pages 142–160-1, May.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    5. Thomas S. Dee, 2008. "Forsaking all others? The effects of same‐sex partnership laws on risky sex," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1055-1078, July.
    6. Mark Anderson, D. & Sabia, Joseph J. & Tekin, Erdal, 2021. "Child access prevention laws and juvenile firearm-related homicides," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Bostwick, W.B. & Meyer, I. & Aranda, F. & Russell, S. & Hughes, T. & Birkett, M. & Mustanski, B., 2014. "Mental health and suicidality among racially/ethnically diverse sexual minority youths," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1129-1136.
    8. Laura Langbein & Mark A. Yost, 2009. "Same‐Sex Marriage and Negative Externalities," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 292-308, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel I. Rees & Joseph J. Sabia & Gokhan Kumpas, 2020. "Anti-Bullying Laws and Suicidal Behaviors among Teenagers," NBER Working Papers 26777, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Delhommer, Scott M. & Hamermesh, Daniel S., 2020. "Same-Sex Couples and the Marital Surplus: The Importance of the Legal Environment," IZA Discussion Papers 13061, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Avner Seror & Rohit Ticku, 2021. "Legalized Same-Sex Marriage and Coming Out in America: Evidence from Catholic Seminaries," Working Papers 21-07, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anderson, D. Mark & Matsuzawa, Kyutaro & Sabia, Joseph J., 2019. "Marriage Equality Laws and Youth Mental Health," IZA Discussion Papers 12819, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    3. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Churchill, Brandyn F. & Marcus, Michelle, 2023. "Bad lighting: Effects of youth indoor tanning prohibitions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    4. Dimitrios Nikolaou, 2023. "Same‐Sex Marriage Legalization and Sexually Transmitted Infections Across Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 35-69, February.
    5. Francis, Andrew M. & Mialon, Hugo M. & Peng, Handie, 2012. "In sickness and in health: Same-sex marriage laws and sexually transmitted infections," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1329-1341.
    6. Christopher S. Carpenter & Samuel T. Eppink & Gilbert Gonzales & Tara McKay, 2021. "Effects of Access to Legal Same‐Sex Marriage on Marriage and Health," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(2), pages 376-411, March.
    7. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    8. Hagemann, Andreas, 2019. "Placebo inference on treatment effects when the number of clusters is small," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 213(1), pages 190-209.
    9. David Roodman & James G. MacKinnon & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen & Matthew D. Webb, 2019. "Fast and wild: Bootstrap inference in Stata using boottest," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 19(1), pages 4-60, March.
    10. Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2015. "Changes in wage inequality in Canada: An interprovincial perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 682-713, May.
    11. Ralph de Haas & Steven Poelhekke, 2016. "Mining Matters: Natural Resource Extraction and Local Business Constraints," CESifo Working Paper Series 6198, CESifo.
    12. Costa-Font, Joan & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2022. "Do Public Caregiving Subsidies and Supports affect the Provision of Care and Transfers?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Eduardo Fé & Bruce Hollingsworth, 2016. "Short- and long-run estimates of the local effects of retirement on health," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 1051-1067, October.
    14. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    15. Zhorayev, Olzhas, 2020. "Determinants of Trust in Police: A Cross-National Analysis," MPRA Paper 109068, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Cockx, Bart & Ghirelli, Corinna, 2016. "Scars of recessions in a rigid labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 162-176.
    17. Sviták, Jan & Tichem, Jan & Haasbeek, Stefan, 2021. "Price effects of search advertising restrictions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    18. Nilabhra Bhattacharya & Theodore E. Christensen & Qunfeng Liao & Bo Ouyang, 2022. "Can short sellers constrain aggressive non-GAAP reporting?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 391-440, June.
    19. Huebener, Mathias & Kuger, Susanne & Marcus, Jan, 2017. "Increased instruction hours and the widening gap in student performance," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 47, pages 15-34.
    20. Walkowitz, Gari & Weiss, Arne R., 2017. "“Read my lips! (but only if I was elected)!” Experimental evidence on the effects of electoral competition on promises, shirking and trust," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 348-367.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26364. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.