Rosenfeld, Michael J. 2015. “Couple Longevity in the Era of Same-Sex Marriage in the United States.” Journal of Marriage and Family Vol 76: 905-918.
Previous studies show that same-sex couples are less less stable compared with heterosexual couples in the United States. The author used a new longitudinal data set, the How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys (N=3009), to come up with the first nationally representative comparison of same-sex couple stability and heterosexual couple stability in the United States. He coined term “marriage and marriage-like relationship”, which includes cohabitation or civil union among heterosexual couples and interpersonal commitment among same-sex couples, and used it as an important perdictor variable. He discoveries that reports of same-sex relationship instability in the past were due in part to the low rate of marriages among same-sex couples. After controlling for marriage and marriage-like commitments, there is no statistically significant difference between the break-up ratefor same-sex couples and that for heterosexual couples. The results revealed that same-sex couples who had a marriage-like commitment had stable unions regardless of government recognition. However, that does not mean that state recognition of marriage is not necessary. It actually brings a pathway to higher marriage rates among same-sex couples.