Macrostructural Conditions of Early Versus Late Institutional Inclusion of Same-Sex Couples in the Family: An International Comparison

Abstract

Abstract Same-sex registered partnership, marriage, and adoption open up the family as an institution to same-sex couples and, therefore, constitute a pathway to a broader definition of what is family. In the last 2 decades, a majority of Western countries have experienced an unprecedented institutional trend toward the provision of new rights to same-sex couples in the family. This swift process of institutional change has been, for the most part, accounted for in the literature by attitudinal changes expressing greater openness toward minorities, and a greater sensitivity to human rights (Engeli et al., 2012). By contrast, we propose an explanation featuring structural features of societies in the early 21st century. We hypothesize that a series of macrostructural conditions account for the precocity versus lateness of legislation favorable to the inclusion of same-sex couples into the family. Also, we expect that normative sex regimes opened to sexual activity between same-sex persons to have been favorable to such inclusion.