Domestic Partner Benefits
In: Public personnel management, Band 41, Heft 3, S. 493-504
ISSN: 1945-7421
The demographics of the traditional American family are changing. More couples are electing to become domestic partners and remain unmarried; domestic partners include same-sex as well as opposite-sex relationships. Understanding the environment within which employers offer domestic partner benefits (DPBs) is essential. DPBs are an issue of marital status as benefits proposed to married employees differ slightly from those offered, if at all, to domestic partners. Our purpose is not only to provide a broad landscape of the barriers surrounding the offering of DPBs from a human resource perspective, but also some of the advantages of doing so.