Collaborative Research: Military Service and the Life Course

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"Military Service and the Life Course" Meredith Kleykamp, John R. Warren, Alair MacLean Research on the correlates of military service has typically focused narrowly on particular historical periods (e.g., the Vietnam era) or on the experiences of particular cohorts (e.g., the World War II generation). Such designs preclude analysis of the ways in which veterans' outcomes are influenced by longer-term changes to major social institutions. This project focuses on whether and how relationships between military service and a variety of outcomes (i.e., marriage, employment, education, and earnings) have changed as broader institutional changes have reshaped American society in the past half century. Data are from the 1964-2012 Current Population Surveys (CPS) that will be significantly enhanced in two ways (as compared to currently existing public CPS data files): First, key measures will be harmonized over time. Second, records for individual veterans will be linked longitudinally across the full 16 months of their participation in the CPS. These uniquely rich data make it possible to address two specific empirical questions. First, how have differences between veterans and non-veterans changed over the past half century? Second, how have the correlates of specific military experiences, including serving in combat and having a service-related disability, changed in recent decades across the past half century? In both sets of analyses, four sets of outcomes are considered: marriage, education, employment, and earnings. No previous research has directly considered changes in veterans' outcomes across such an extensive array of cohorts and periods, or with a large enough sample to separately consider the experiences of female veterans or of veterans from ethno-racial minority groups. Broader Impacts: Relatively little is known about the social and economic consequences of post-9/11 military service, especially as compared to the experiences of earlier generations. Indeed, Congress and the administration continue to express concern about the lack of research on how veterans of this era readjust to civilian life (Institute of Medicine 2010). In addition, veterans have long been the best (or worst) recruiters for the military. It is important that veterans are successful in their civilian roles after their periods of service in order to staff future all-volunteer forces.