This study investigates the reasons behind the spike in same-sex marriages (technically same-sex civil unions, which grant the same rights as marriage) in December 2018, one month before Jair Bolsonaro assumed office as President of Brazil. We hypothesize that salience theory explains why this spike was sharper in more conservative regions and sheds light on the gendered differences in its effects. Using a differences-in-differences approach, we find that women-women marriages increased by 2.02 percent in areas where Bolsonaro won and a 1.71 percent increase in menmen marriages in the same regions. Additionally, event studies and robustness checks confirm that this effect was more pronounced for women-women marriages.
Keywords: salience, behavioral, marriage, same-sex, LGBTQ+, election