The sex ratio and global sodomy law reform in the post-WWII era

This paper studies the role of the population sex ratio, i.e., the ratio of men to women, in the global wave of sodomy law reform in the post-WWII era. Using data from a global survey, this paper first shows that men are more homophobic than women and that this pattern has persisted over time across countries. Using newly constructed panel data on 183 countries, this paper then shows that having a high sex ratio makes repeal of a sodomy law less likely. This negative relationship between the sex ratio and sodomy law repeal is robust to numerous checks, including using temperature as an instrumental variable for the sex ratio.