Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/183385 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1156
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
While previous research examines how institutions matter for general life satisfaction and how specific institutions embodying equal rights for gay people matter for the life satisfaction of gays, we combine these two issues to analyze how the latter type of institutions relates to general life satisfaction. The question is how people in general are affected by laws treating everyone equally irrespective of sexual orientation. We find that legal recognition of partnership, marriage and adoption rights, as well as an equal age of consent, relate positively to general life satisfaction. Consequently, same-sex marriage and similar reforms come at no "welfare" cost to society at large - if anything, the opposite appears to hold. We further build on previous research showing positive effects of economic freedom on happiness and on tolerance towards gay people and interact our rights measure with economic freedom. This reveals that the positive effect on general happiness of equal rights mainly appears in countries with low economic freedom. This likely follows because minority rights are perceived to indicate openness to much-desired reforms in other areas.
Subjects: 
Life satisfaction
Same-sex marriage
Rights
Institutions
Culture
Immigration
Tolerance
Gays and lesbians
Minorities
Integration
JEL: 
I31
Z13
Z18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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