Registered partnership (RP) and marriage in the Netherlands are identical in terms of rights and obligations but may differ in symbolism. Exploiting same-sex marriage legalization (SSML) in the Netherlands as a policy shock, we investigate the effect of marital symbolism on partnership stability. Applying a mixed competing risks model to administrative micro-data, we disentangle selectivity into marriage from the effect of getting married. Our main finding is that partnerships that transformed into marriage had a substantially lower separation rate. We take this result as evidence of the symbolic effect of marriage stabilizing partnerships. We discuss economic mechanisms of marital symbolism related to marriage premiums.

, , ,
, , , ,
doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.07.021, hdl.handle.net/1765/132553
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
Department of Applied Economics

Chen, S., & van Ours, J. (2020). Symbolism Matters: The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization on Partnership Stability. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 178, 44–58. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2020.07.021