Comparative Couple Stability: Same-sex and Male-female Unions in the United States

Abstract

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Original ArticleWith the advent of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, same-sex marriages are legal across the United States, and in some states, same-sex marriages and other governmentally recognized unions were legal several years prior. Levels and patterns of the stability of this relatively new type of union are not well understood. While some studies have shown that samesex unions are at higher risk of dissolution compared to malefemale unions, others have found similar dissolution rates for same-sex and male-female unions. A common finding across the literature, however, is that female-female unions in particular are less stable than their male-male or male-female counterparts. It is unclear, however, whether this gendered difference in union stability is found for both cohabiting and formalized unions (i.e., marriage, domestic partnership, or civil union). Additionally, the mechanisms underlying the relative instability of female-female unions remain unexplained.This article seeks to compare the stability of male-male, female-female, and male-female couples in both cohabitational and formalized unions, exploring the interaction effects between the gender composition and the formal union status of couples. While the literature on this topic has divergent findings, each study has approached this issue in a slightly different way, some investigating only cohabitational unions or only formal unions and some considering same-sex couples as a single group rather than separating male-male and female-female unions, for example. Using recent longitudinal data from coupled individuals, we separate male-male, female-female, and male-female couples as well as cohabitational and formalized unions to provide an understanding of similarities and differences in stability between couple types. We find that all cohabitational unions experience the same risk of union dissolution and that all formalized unions have a lower risk of dissolution compared to their cohabitational peers. However, we find that formalized female-female unions have higher risk of union dissolution compared to formalized male-male and male-female unions. This article also seeks to shed light on mechanisms that drive this difference in stability. AbstractFindings on comparative couple stability between same-sex and male-female unions vary, with some studies finding similar dissolution rates among same-sex and male-female unions and others finding higher rates of dissolution among same-sex unions. The authors extend previous research by examining the association between gender composition of couples and dissolution patte...

Do same-sex unions dissolve more often than different-sex unions? Methodological insights from Colombian data on sexual behavior

“…What does this result say about how differences in dissolution risk between same-sex and different-sex unions vary across contexts? Our results contrast with studies in contexts with less stigma than Colombia, such as the United States, where the stability of same-sex unions is similar to the stability of different-sex cohabiting unions (Ketcham and Bennett 2019;Manning, Brown, and Stykes 2016). This would suggest that the relative stability of same-sex unions is indeed lower in countries with high social stigma towards sexual minorities.…”

“…We innovated by using measures of sexual practice from the DHS 2015 to show how conclusions differ depending on how same-sex unions are identified. When solely using information on the sex of partners, the stability of same-sex unions appeared very similar to that of different-sex cohabiting unions; a result also observed for the United States and Taiwan (Ketcham and Bennett 2019;Lin, Yu, and Su 2019;Manning, Brown, and Stykes 2016;Rosenfeld 2014). However, same-sex unions of individuals who ever had sex with someone of the same sex were much less stable than different-sex unions.…”

Twenty Years of Legal Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in the United States: Evidence Review and New Analyses

“…A second study analyzing these data from 2009 to 2015 replicated these results and found that receiving any form of legal status was associated with reduced risk of relationship dissolution in comparison with cohabitation. Dissolution rates of legal unions between two women were higher than those of unions between two men or between a man and a woman, but same-sex couples with legal status, as a group, did not differ from different-sex unions in risk for breakup (Ketcham and Bennett, 2019). These results suggest that sexual-minority women may have a lower threshold for formalizing a relationship than men.…”

“…These results suggest that sexual-minority women may have a lower threshold for formalizing a relationship than men. Both studies using these data found that couples consisting of two women formalize their relationships at significantly higher rates than couples consisting of two men or a man and a woman (Ketcham and Bennett, 2019;Rosenfeld, 2014). A third analysis using repeated survey data confirmed these results and found that couples consisting of two women were more likely to register for legal status than couples consisting of two men (Bernstein, Naples, and Harvey, 2016).…”

Doing Genders: Partner’s Gender and Labor Market Behavior

“…This may partially reflect higher dissolution rates and shorter durations for same-sex unions. Research comparing union dissolution for same-sex and different-sex couples has produced mixed results, with some studies finding higher dissolution rates for same-sex couples and others finding no significant differences between couple types ( Ketcham and Bennett 2019 ; Kolk and Andersson 2020 ; Manning, Brown, and Stykes 2016 ; Rosenfeld 2014 ). In the Netherlands, female same-sex marriages have higher divorce rates than do different-sex and male same-sex marriages ( Kalmijn, Loeve, and Manting 2007 ; Statistics Netherlands 2021 ).…”