A Queer Marriage Gap? Traditionalist Attitudes in Politics, Family, and Gender Among Heterosexuals and Sexual Minorities

• In Event: 20416 - Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage and Queer Parenting

Abstract

Extant scholarship has consistently identified “marriage gaps” in traditionalism, with married individuals exhibiting more traditional attitudes and beliefs than their unmarried counterparts, including across politics, gender, marriage, and family domains. However, the realization of marriage equality in liberal democracies has marked a paradigmatic shift in the institution of marriage and challenged established gender norms and hierarchies. This shift raises an important yet underexplored question: Will the association between marriage and traditionalism also emerge among sexual minorities, the “new” institutional participants? Using the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Study, this study examines how “marriage gaps” in individual-level traditionalism vary by gender and sexual identity across three dimensions of personal culture: 1) political conservatism; 2) support for traditional family values; and 3) gender conformity. Results show that marriage is generally linked to traditionalism among heterosexuals, particularly among women, but patterns among sexual minorities are more uneven—and on occasion, display an inversion of the marriage gap. Notably, while married LGB men and women tend to be more politically conservative than their unmarried peers, there is a negative marriage gap in political conservatism among women with other queer identifications (e.g., queer, pansexual, asexual, two-spirit), as well as in family traditionalism among gay men. Further analyses employing coarsened exact matching suggest that selection into marriage based on key sociodemographic characteristics may partially explain these patterns. This study contributes to the emerging literature on the attitudinal heterogeneity of sexual minority populations in post-marriage equality contexts.

Author

• Chih-lan (Winnie) Yang, University of Alberta