Now that Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have joined Massachusetts in allowing gay marriage, the New England area could become increasingly attractive to a “youthful ‘creative class’ of workers” to counter the region’s aging population, according to a Reuters article.
The region has now become “the first in the United States where same-sex couples can move from one state to another while retaining marriage benefits,” the article goes on to say.
One couple new to the region is John Visser and Nick Keffer, who recently moved to Hartford, Connecticut, from Raleigh, North Carolina. They plan to wed later this month.
“The sole, only reason why we moved was because it was now legal for us to get married here,” Visser, 42, told Reuters. “No other reason whatsoever other than marriage equality. We were perfectly happy in North Carolina.”
Experts believe the legalization of gay marriage could become a recruiting tool for universities, health care companies and financial services firms that are important to the region’s economy. M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist who studies gay and lesbian issues, said, “It will be a selling point when it comes to trying to lure people with same-sex partners who are being wooed for a job.”
A study released by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, in May reported that the so-called “creative class” same-sex couples were 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts in the three years after the state began allowing gay marriage than three years before. The study also indicates that people who move to Massachusetts were more likely to be younger and female than before gay marriage was approved.
Since 2004, the wedding-related spending of 12,167 gay couples in Massachusetts have reached $111 million, boosting the state’s economy, the Williams Institute estimated.
According to Bob Witeck, chief executive of the Washington-based marketing firm that focuses on gay and lesbian issues, Witeck-Combs Communications, over time, same-sex couples who move to the region become unwilling to leave and move to one of the 42 states where gay marriage is banned. “Once these states offer marriage to these families, they will not quickly, willingly or easily accept new assignments, transfers and promotions to states that don’t offer them,” he said. “They’re creating an economic wall in the region that is going to impact the ability of all national employers to move talent around.”
