Working Around the Military: Challenges to Military Spouse Employment and Education

This study responds to the recognition that the majority of military spouses have paid employment, but that neither the Department of Defense nor other organizations, such as military family advocacy groups, understand which occupations military spouses pursue, their motivations for work, or their perceptions of how the military lifestyle has affected their employment or education. This report provides a rich analytical understanding of military spouses employment and educational status, drawn from robust quantitative data, while also incorporating the input from more than 1,100 military spouses who participated in interviews in the context of this research. The title of this report is intended to reflect the challenges to military spouse employment and education inherent in their proximity to the military as well as the many accommodations to the military lifestyle reflected in the spouse comments herein. This report should be of interest to military policymakers, the analytical community that studies military families, the proponents for military families, and military service members and their spouses.