Same-Sex Marriages in France: Major Differences Between Gay Couples and Lesbian Couples

Gaëlle Meslay , Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Since 2013, same-sex couples are allowed to marry in France, following egalitarian laws concerning sexual minorities in Europe. If same-sex couples marry much less than different-sex couples (Badgett, 2009) this rate is not so low in France, probably due to the political and legal context. So who are the couples who got married? Are men couples similar to women couples? I will use the databases on marriages provided by the National Institute of Statistics, which are exhaustive for each year. These data point, in particular, that gay couples are older and more parisians than lesbian couples. These differences could reflect variations in the juridical motives for union between the two groups, especially due to parental issues. Indeed, we know that women are more likely than men to live with children (Buisson & Lapinte, 2013), and that the adoption process require to be married.

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 Presented in Session 217. Gender and Sexual Minority Families