Honors Program Theses

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Honors Program Thesis (UNI Access Only)

Keywords

Wages--Gay men; Wages--Married men; Wages--Single men;

Abstract

Extensive research on the marital earnings premium for men in the U.S finds strong evidence of a wage premium for married men over otherwise comparable single men. However, legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States in 2015 raises the question: is there a similar marriage premium for homosexual men? I use 2016 ACS data to observe differences in earnings between individuals coded as “same-sex married couples” (married homosexual men), and individuals indicating a same-sex “unmarried partner” (single homosexual men). After controlling for individual and demographic characteristics, I find there is a statistically significant positive earnings differential of roughly 30% for married homosexual men when earned income and wage income are used as dependent variables. Further analysis shows that after controlling for seven broad occupational categories, the premium shrinks to between 12% and 19%, but remains statistically significant.

Year of Submission

2018

Department

Department of Economics

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Date Original

2018

Object Description

1 PDF file (26 pages)

Language

EN

File Format

application/pdf

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