Matching Patterns among Same-Sex and Different-Sex Couples in Latin America

Historically, economists have argued that individuals may search for partners based on production complementarities in order to maximize the gains from intrahousehold specialization ( Becker 1991 ) . As these gains have decreased over time due to various factors such as technological progress, increasing female labor force participation, and changes to divorce laws, consumption complementarities have gained more relevance ( Stevenson and Wolfers 2007 ) . While these theories have been developed mainly to explain assortative mating among heterosexual individuals, they can also be ( par- tially ) applied to sexual minority individuals. 1 Indeed, a few studies have analyzed matching patterns among same -sex couples in the United States and Europe ( Badgett et al., forthcoming ) . This paper extends this literature by comparing matching patterns among same -sex and different -sex couples in eight countries in Latin America.