This paper analyzes the impact of marriage regulations on the migratory behavior of individuals using the history of the liberalization of same-sex marriage across the USA. The legalization of same-sex marriage allows homosexuals’ access to legal rights and social benefits, which can make marriage more attractive in comparison to singlehood or other forms of partnership. The results clearly show that legalization increased the migration flow of gay men to states that legalized same-sex marriage. We do not detect statistically significant effects for women in the short term. Supplemental analysis, developed to explore whether the migration flow translated to a significant effect on the number of homosexuals by state, suggests that the increase after the legalization of same-sex marriage was transitory. Legalization of same-sex marriage also reduces the incentives for non-US-native individuals originating from intolerant countries to move to a state that permits same-sex marriage.

本文利用美国各地同性婚姻自由化的历史分析了婚姻法规对个人迁徙行为的影响。同性婚姻的合法化允许同性恋获得合法权利和社会利益，与单身或其他形式的伴侣关系相比，这可以使婚姻更具吸引力。结果清楚地表明，合法化增加了男同性恋者向同性婚姻合法化的州的移民流。在短期内，我们没有发现对女性有统计学意义的影响。补充分析旨在探究移民流动是否对国家同性恋人数产生重大影响，该研究表明，同性婚姻合法化之后的增加是短暂的。