Legal Differences in State Non-Discrimination Laws and the Effect of Employment Protections for Gay Men

50 Pages Posted: 21 Jul 2015

See all articles by Ian Burn

Ian Burn

Stockholm University - Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI)

Date Written: July 16, 2015

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of legal differences in state-level employment nondiscrimination acts (ENDAs) for gay men on their labor market outcomes. I focus on what effect legal differences have on cohabiting gay men. Using a differences-in-differences approach, the results show that ENDAs increased the wages of gay men when enacted. When treating all laws as the same, ENDAs increase hourly wages by 3.4% and have no effect on employment. When we control for legal differences between laws, the wage increase of ENDAs is shown to be 5.7% in states with damages and not statistically significant in states without damages. ENDAs increase employment by 1.4% in states that do not allow plaintiffs to recoup attorney's fees. In states with the attorney's fees provision, employment declines by 2.7%. Caps on damages result in positive employment growth for gay men. There are significant differences in the effect of ENDAs across demographic groups and geographies.

Suggested Citation

Burn, Ian, Legal Differences in State Non-Discrimination Laws and the Effect of Employment Protections for Gay Men (July 16, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2631898 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2631898

Ian Burn (Contact Author)

Stockholm University - Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) ( email )

Kyrkgatan 43B
SE-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden

HOME PAGE: http://ianburn.com

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