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All they need is love: Union formation among same-sex and different-sex couples in Brazil

Paula Miranda-Ribeiro, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Luísa Cardoso Guedes de Souza, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)

The objective of this study is to examine union formation and sexual orientation among same-sex and different-sex coresident couples in Brazil. Data come from the Civil Registry and the recently released Pesquisa Nacional de Saúde 2019 - PNS 2019 (National Health Survey 2019), both collected by IBGE, the Brazilian National Statistical Office and Census Bureau. Civil registry data suggest that the presidential election of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-) in October 2018 is likely to have impacted the number of legal unions between same-sex couples in the months following his victory. Contrastedly, the monthly pattern of heterosexual couples weddings does not seem to have changed much. Data from PNS 2019 indicate that females account for over 60% of spouses/partners of household heads in both same-sex and different-sex unions. Regarding union formation, 15.2% of the same-sex unions and 64.3% of the different-sex unions are formal. Logistic regression models will indicate whether gays and lesbians are more or less likely to be legally married than heterossexual couples.

Keywords: Family demography, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), Demographic and social surveys, Gender

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P5.