Anti Discrimination Laws and Mental Health

Exploiting the roll out of state level sexual orientation based Anti-Discrimination Laws over the past 25 years within a difference-in-differences model that is robust to staggered timing, I document the causal effect of Anti-Discrimination Laws on mental health for the first time. Results demonstrate that Anti-Discrimination Laws significantly improve the mental health of sexual minorities. I leverage data from several sources to explore three plausible mechanisms: changes in labor market outcomes, changes in health insurance coverage, and changes in social and workplace climate.