TY - JOUR T1 - In Sickness and in Health JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 637 LP - 688 DO - 10.3368/jhr.57.2.0118-9295R2 VL - 57 IS - 2 AU - Scott Barkowski AU - Joanne Song McLaughlin Y1 - 2022/03/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/2/637.abstract N2 - We study the interaction of state and federal dependent health insurance mandates on young adult marriages. Using a new data set on state-level mandates, we show marriage restrictions of these laws reduced marriage likelihoods by about two percentage points. When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted, its mandate ended marriage restrictions, encouraging marriage among those previously eligible for state mandates. However, among those ineligible for state mandates, it discouraged marrying to obtain insurance through spouses. The combination of these contrasting ACA effects eliminated the marriage gap. We also find these marriage effects resulted in corresponding impacts on out-of-wedlock births. ER -