> from Philanthropy News Digest\/Foundation Center newsletter
\n> August 27, 2004
\n> Civil Society
\n>
\n> University of Massachusetts economist Lee Badgett has studied marriage
\n> customs in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, where same-sex
\n> marriage or same-sex partnership rights have existed for up to fifteen
\n> years. She found, and noted in a briefing paper prepared for the Council
\n> on Contemporary Families and the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic
\n> Studies, that previously existing trends in marriage, divorce,
\n> cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock childbearing did not change. In fact, in
\n> Denmark, heterosexual marriage rates increased after the adoption of
\n> same-sex marriage and are now the highest they have been since the early
\n> 1970s. Divorce rates remained the same in the countries studied. The
\n> majority of families with children are headed by married couples. In
\n> Norway, 77 percent of couples with children are married and in the
\n> Netherlands, 75 percent, compared to 72 percent in the United States.
\n> According to Badgett, the Scandinavian and Dutch experience suggests
\n> there is little reason to think heterosexual couples would eschew
\n> marriage if gay and lesbian couples got the same rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
> from Philanthropy News Digest\/Foundation Center newsletter > August 27, 2004 > Civil Society > > University of Massachusetts economist Lee Badgett has studied marriage > customs in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, where same-sex > marriage or same-sex … Continue reading