Marriage, cohabitation, and institutional context: Household specialization among same-sex and different-sex couples

Abstract

Objective

This study examines how marriage-cohabitation gaps in household specialization (labor supply and earnings) vary across institutional contexts for same-sex couples (SSCs) and different-sex couples (DSCs) in Canada.

Background

Prior research suggests that marriage-cohabitation gaps are smaller in contexts where cohabitation is more prevalent, but it has overlooked how legal protections (at the contextual level) and gender composition (at the couple level) moderate this association. As a result, little is known about whether differences in household specialization stem from heightened gendered expectations attached to marriage or stronger legal protections for married couples. This study posits that marriage-cohabitation gaps will be larger in contexts where legal protections for cohabitors are less marriage-like.

Methods

Using the 2006 and 2016 Canadian Census and the 2011 National Household Survey, I estimate ordinal and fractional logit models to examine marriage-cohabitation gaps in specialization among all couples (N = 2,788,055) and couples with young children (N = 826,305).

Results

Among DSCs, marriage-cohabitation gaps were larger in Québec than in English Canada vis-à-vis earnings but not labor supply. Patterns among SSCs were more heterogeneous: gaps in labor supply were larger in English Canada for female couples but larger in Québec for male couples. Gaps in earnings were generally larger in Québec, with few exceptions. However, DSCs consistently specialized more than SSCs.

Conclusion

While existing research suggests marriage-cohabitation gaps in household specialization are largely explained by the prevalence of cohabitation, my results indicate that legal protections (at the contextual level) and gender composition (at the couple level) play a more decisive role.