Groupe de Recherche en Économie et Développement International Cahier de Recherche / Working Paper 09-23 The effect of same-sex marriage laws on different-sex marriage: Evidence from the Netherlands Mircea Trandafir 1 The effect of same-sex marriage laws on different-sex marriage: Evidence from the Netherlands Mircea Trandafir∗ Universit´ede Sherbrooke and GREDI´ This version: October 2011 (ee0cc27) Abstract In this paper, I examine what happened to different-sex marriage in the Netherlands after two laws that introduced registered partnership (an institution almost identical to marriage) in 1998 and same-sex marriage in 2001. I first construct a synthetic control for the Netherlands using OECD data for 1988{2005 and find that neither law had significant effects on either the overall or different-sex marriage rate. Next, I confirm these results using a unique individual-level dataset for 1995{2005 and a discrete- time hazard model with unobserved heterogeneity. Finally, I find that potentially conservative individuals married more while liberal individuals married less after each law. Keywords: Same-sex marriage, synthetic control, discrete-time hazard model. JEL Classification: J12, J15. ∗Contact information: Department of economics, Universit´ede Sherbrooke, 2500 boul. de l'Universit´e, Sherbrooke, Qu´ebec J1K 2R1, Canada. Email: mircea.trandafi
[email protected]. I am indebted to Judy Hellerstein and Seth Sanders for their support and guidance throughout this project. I am also grateful for comments provided by Meltem Daysal, John Ham, Bas van der Klaauw, John Wallis, and seminar participants at the University of Maryland, Tinbergen Institute, Delft University of Technology, McGill University, Paris School of Economics, Population Association of America, the Society of Labor Economists, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the Southern Economic Association.