Effects of the Recent Medicaid Expansion on Cohabitation and Marriage: Comparing Estimates From the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey

Margaret Gough , University of La Verne

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010 and was designed, in part, to vastly increase health insurance coverage. In this study, I build on past research to examine whether the Medicaid expansion provision of the ACA affected rates of cohabitation and marriage among young adults, and I compare estimates across two nationally representative data sets: the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS). I use data from the 2008-2016 waves to estimate difference-in-difference models. Preliminary results indicate that the Medicaid expansion was associated with significant declines in both cohabitation and marriage, with effects for cohabitation being larger in the CPS than in the ACS, likely as a result of differences in the measurement of cohabitation, and effects generally being larger for women than men. Implications of these findings and discrepancies are discussed.

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 Presented in Session 4. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions