The geography of Australia's Marriage Law Postal Survey outcome

Abstract

After years of public debate about same‐sex marriage, the Australian Government put the issue to the electorate in the “Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey” in late 2017. The survey asked voters whether the law should be changed to allow same‐sex couples to marry. Nationally, 61.6% of voters responded “Yes.” But there were marked variations by electoral division, with the proportion of “Yes” votes varying from 26.1% to 83.7%. The aim of this paper is to explore the geographical pattern of the percentage of voters responding “Yes” by federal electoral division and identify its correlates. Results of the survey by federal electoral division were obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS); other variables for electoral divisions were obtained from the ABS and the Australian Electoral Commission. Multiple linear regression and geographically weighted regression were employed to establish the relationship between the percentage of “Yes” responses at the electoral division level and the characteristics of electoral divisions’ populations. In 133 of 150 electoral divisions there was a majority of “Yes” responses. Strong predictor variables of the percentage “Yes” vote included the proportions of: the population describing themselves as having no religion, those with post‐school educational qualifications, those with a birthplace in Oceania, Europe, or the Americas, and those who did not vote for conservative parties in the 2016 federal election. A marginally better fit was obtained with geographically weighted regression. In conclusion, the geographical pattern of responses in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey is closely associated with a small number of characteristics of an electoral division's population.

Rejecting equality: Psychological differences between Australian sexual minority men voting “yes,” voting “no,” or abstaining from voting on the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“…Other important contextual factors that have been implicated in voting behavior on the topic of same-sex marriage include geographic and group membership variables. Research shows, for instance, that voting behavior on the issue of same-sex marriage can be modeled as a function of geographic region or electoral division (Gravelle & Carson, 2019; McAllister & Snagovsky, 2018; McVeigh & Maria-Elena, 2009; Wilson et al, 2019). These geographic differences in support for same-sex marriage can be explained by geographic variations in lower-level, sociodemographic factors.…”

“…These geographic differences in support for same-sex marriage can be explained by geographic variations in lower-level, sociodemographic factors. Although some of these factors were included in the present investigation (e.g., political conservatism, religiosity), other potentially important factors, such as income (McAllister & Snagovsky, 2018), specific political or religious group memberships (Gravelle & Carson, 2019; Wilson et al, 2019), traditionalism (McVeigh & Maria-Elena, 2009), or immigrant status (McAllister & Snagovsky, 2018; Wilson et al, 2019) should be included in future analyses examining this issue.…”

“…By extension, research shows that greater religiosity also predicts greater opposition to same-sex marriage (Brumbaugh, Sanchez, Nock, & Wright, 2008; Olson et al, 2006; Pearl & Galupo, 2007; Sherkat, Powell-Williams, Maddox, & De Vries, 2011; van der Toorn, Jost, Packer, Noorbaloochi, & Van Bavel, 2017; Webb & Chonody, 2012), including that conducted in the Australian context (Anderson et al, 2017; Gravelle & Carson, 2019; Perales, Bouma, & Campbell, 2019; Perales & Campbell, 2018; Sloane & Robillard, 2018; Wilson, Shalley, & Perales, 2019). Given that sexual minority people can, of course, be religious (Rodriguez, 2010), it is possible that religiosity would also predict opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage among sexual minority people.…”

When cultural strength means political weakness: Romania’s marriage referendum and the paradox of conservative mobilisation

“…In Australia, there was no formal referendum, as the government organised instead a postal survey (McAllister and Snagovsky, 2018;Wilson, Shalley and Perales, 2019). Gay marriage was subsequently legalised by Parliamentary decision: the government had previously said that there would be no vote on the issue in Parliament should the majority of respondents in the survey be opposed to gay marriage, but would allow a free vote for MPs if there was a majority in favour.…”

The Road Less Travelled: Using Administrative Data To Understand Inequalities By Sexual Orientation

“…This collection of data was subsequently deployed in other research studies to further advance research on Australian sexual minorities (seeGravelle and Carlson 2019;Saxby et al 2020;Wilson et al 2020). Center for the Study of Inequality 2017).…”