Publication year
2007
Citation Title
A comparison of civilian and enlisted divorce rates during the early all volunteer force
Journal Name
Journal of Political and Military Sociology
Journal Volume
35
Issue Number
2
Page Numbers
199
Summary
An assessment of the divorce rates of military personnel was conducted. This study used the military data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and conducted a multivariate analysis of divorce rates among young military couples. This dataset comprised both civilians and enlisted personnel, thus providing an accurate comparison. Overall, the findings suggest that enlisted divorce rates in the Armed Forces are higher than for comparable civilians within a specific age range.
Key Findings
Controlling for basic demographic factors (e.g., race, gender, the presence of children, age at marriage, residence at age 14 years) married enlisted individuals were 62% more likely to divorce during the study time period than married civilians.
Among military and civilian families, having children was negatively correlated with divorce.
When controlling for socioeconomic factors, it was found that these indicators (e.g., attended private high school, number of siblings, single parent, attended college) did little to explain higher divorce rates in the military.
Implications for Program Leaders
Develop online modules that focus on relationship building and communication for Service members and their partners
Focus relationship support on younger, lower ranked Soldiers in newer marriages and relationships
Offer groups that support a broad range of Service members and their partners during times of stress (e.g. deployment, relocation, grief)
Implications for Policy Makers
Promote the development of structured workshops for Service members and their partners to provide support during times of stress (e.g. relocation, deployment)
Encourage awareness among professionals working with Service members families and communities about the effects of stressful experiences on the well-being of Service members and their relationships
Recommend collaboration between DoD programs and local community organizations to support programs for Service members and their families that address positive relationships
Methods
Data was sampled from the NLSY, which is a longitudinal survey that provides information on family formation patterns at multiple points in time for civilians and military enlistees.
Data for the NLSY was collected beginning in 1979, and included a subsample of military Active Duty personnel, ages 17-21 years as of September 30, 1978 (N = 1,280).
Analysis for each individual began upon marriage, and looked at various factors (e.g., demographic, religiosity, socioeconomic, race) and which of these, if any, were associated with divorce among young military couples.
Participants
This study included 650 enlisted military members as well as 2,294 civilians who were married.
Eighty-eight percent of the enlisted participants were male; whereas only 41% of the civilian participants were male. The average age at which participants married was almost the same, 20.2 years old for enlisted and 20.3 years old for civilians.
Enlisted participants identified as White (80%) or Black (20%); whereas, civilians identified as White (91%) and Black (9%).
Limitations
The data in the study only represent a specific age group of married couples; which constrains findings to only be representative of this age group.
Data analyzed were collected over a five year time period time starting in 1978, which may be less applicable to today’’s Armed Forces.
While censorship of the data of those who exited or entered the military occurred in the analysis of the data; this population may have been different than those who remained in the military or civilian population and as such affected the outcomes of the study.
Avenues for Future Research
Explore the association between military families stress (e.g., financial, relocation, deployment) and divorce rate
Engage in process-oriented and longitudinal studies that help determine the factors that contribute to marital quality and stability over time in military marriages
Investigate the degree to which dual-military couples are at increased risk for lower marital quality and divorce
Focus
Multiple Branches
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Branch
Military Component
Abstract
The belief that enlisted military divorce rates are unusually high is a recurring theme expressed among those living in the military community, yet quantitative data on military divorce rates remain a virtual lacuna. Assessing the degree of marital dissolution experienced by military personnel has important implications for the well being of military families and also for readiness levels and reenlistment likelihood. The all-volunteer enlisted force also happens to be an almost all-married enlisted force. This demographic transition is aptly illustrated in the replacement of the old expression, “If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one” with “We recruit soldiers, but we retain families” (Scarville 1990:1). In this paper, I analyze underutilized military data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and find that enlisted divorce rates in the Armed Forces are higher than for comparable civilians within a specific age range. That so little is officially known about levels of military divorce owes largely to the cross-sectional nature of most military data. To accurately measure divorce prevalence, it is necessary to follow couples from marriage formation forward, while also taking into account attrition from the military and any other changing individual-level characteristics during the period of analysis. To place such findings within their proper context, one needs a civilian baseline for comparison. However, it is rare that military surveys include civilian data. Instead, divorce percentages are often compared across the civilian and enlisted populations in the absence of controls for compositional differences. This lack of comparability can sometimes be partially remedied by comparing Pentagon data to cross-sectional data from the civilian Current Population Survey (CPS); however, there are significant inconsistencies across the datasets in their sampling design and variable structure. Using the CPS as an augmentative comparison is further compromised when analyzing divorce rates because the CPS contains variables only for “currently divorced” rather than providing dates of divorce. This paper provides a more rigorous means of evaluating the prevalence of military divorce by using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a longitudinal dataset that allows for a simultaneous comparison of divorce outcomes for both enlisted military and civilian respondents.
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