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Employers' health insurance coverage for legal spouses places unmarried couples at a disadvantage for obtaining coverage. Data from the Current Population Survey confirm that people with same‐sex or different‐sex unmarried partners are two to three times more likely to be uninsured than married people, even after controlling for factors influencing coverage. Universal partner coverage would cut that uninsured rate by as much as 50%. Employers offering domestic partner benefits would see a small enrollment increase: 0.1%–0.3% for gay and lesbian partners and 1.3%–1.8% for heterosexual partners. We find no evidence of adverse selection. (JEL J32, J38, J71)

Public attitudes and policies toward LGBTQ individuals have improved substantially in recent decades. Economists are actively shaping the discourse around these policies and contributing to our understanding of the economic lives of LGBTQ individuals. In this paper, we present the most up-to-date estimates of the size, location, demographic characteristics, and family structures of LGBTQ individuals in the United States. We describe an emerging literature on the effects of legal access to same-sex marriage on family and socioeconomic outcomes. We also summarize what is known about the size, direction, and sources of wage differentials related to variation in sexual orientation and gender identity. We conclude by describing a range of open questions in LGBTQ economics.

The work of academics can matter and be influential on a public level, but the path to becoming a public intellectual, influential policy advisor, valued community resource or go-to person on an issue is not one that most scholars are trained for. The Public Professor offers scholars ways to use their ideas, research and knowledge to change the world. The book gives practical strategies for scholars to become more engaged with the public on a variety of fronts: online, in print, at council hearings, even with national legislation. Lee Badgett, a veteran policy analyst and public intellectual with over 25 years of experience connecting cutting edge research with policymakers and the public, offers clear and practical advice to scholars looking to engage with the world outside of academia. She shows scholars how to see the big picture, master communicating with new audiences, and build strategic professional networks. Learn how to find and develop relationships with the people who can take your research and ideas into places scholars rarely go, and who can get you into Congressional hearings, on NPR, or into the pages of The New York Times. Turn your knowledge into clear and compelling messages to use in interviews, blog posts, tweets and op-eds. Written for both new and experienced scholars and drawing on examples and advice from the lives of influential academics, the book provides the skills, resources, and tools to put ideas into action. (Verl.).

The legal recognition of same-sex relationships in a growing number of countries has facilitated the existence and persistence of binational same-sex couples. However, as recent research on same-sex couples in Europe demonstrates, these couples remain disadvantaged, with circumscribed choices and expensive adaptations. Progress in granting immigration rights to partners has provided new opportunities for political organizing and resistance to discrimination in immigration law.

In societies that link femaleness to familial altruism, women tend to be disproportionately represented in caring occupations. This reinforces occupational segregation, sex-based pay differentials and the very norms that dictate appropriate behaviour for women and men. The authors' research on the interaction between marriage markets and labour markets shows another reason why such gender norms are resistant to change. Their analysis of the relationship between caring labour, social norms and economic outcomes leads them to advocate not only reassigning responsibilities for care, but specific measures to protect caring work, including strict quality standards on the provision of marketed care.

Lisa Wade and Gwen Sharp started the Sociological Images blog to encourage people to “develop their sociological imagination.” The blog features many kinds of images, from cartoons about academia to charts from studies, but also vintage anti-suffragette postcards, old ads showing gender or racial stereotypes, and photos of Russian greenhouses to illustrate the carbon footprint of roses on Valentine’s Day. Their website now gets more than half a million visits per month by readers seeking images and insights gleaned from academic studies and other sources. The blog’s posts are cited heavily in the traditional media—newspapers, magazines, radio and TV