Propensity to serve in the U.S. Military: Temporal trends and subgroup differences

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 25, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 407-427

  Segal, David R ^a   Bachman, Jerald G ^b   Freedman Doan, Peter ^b   O'Malley, Patrick M ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0033449660     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X9902500304     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Gary R. Nelson, "The Supply and Quality of First-term Enlistees under the All-Volunteer Force." In The All-Volunteer Force After A Decade, ed. William Bowman, Roger Little, and G. Thomas Siclia (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986).
2. See, for example, Bruce R. Orvis, Narayan Sastry, and Laurie L. McDonald, Military Recruiting Outlook: Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1996).
3. Also Jerald G. Bachman, David R. Segal, Peter Freedman-Doan, and Patrick M. O'Malley, "Does Enlistment Propensity Predict Accession?" Armed Forces & Society 25 (1998): 59-80.
4. See Orvis, Sastry, and McDonald, Military Recruiting Outlook, and David R. Segal and Jerald G. Bachman, "Changes in the All-Volunteer Force: Reflections in Youth Attitudes," in Marching Toward the 21st Century: Military Manpower and Recruiting, ed. Mark J. Eitelberg and Stephen L. Mehay (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994).
5. See Orvis, Sastry, and McDonald, Military Recruiting Outlook, and David R. Segal and Jerald G. Bachman, "Changes in the All-Volunteer Force: Reflections in Youth Attitudes," in Marching Toward the 21st Century: Military Manpower and Recruiting, ed. Mark J. Eitelberg and Stephen L. Mehay (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994).
6. Segal and Bachman, "Change in the All-Volunteer Force."
7. M. Wilson, V. Nieva, E. Kolmstetter, and J. Greenlees, Youth Attitude Tracking Study 1992: Propensity and Advertising Report (Alexandria, VA: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1993).
8. Bachman et al., "Does Enlistment Propensity Predict Accession?" Armed Forces & Society 25 (1998): 59-80.
9. Maxwell R. Thurman, "Sustaining the All-Volunteer Force 1983-1992: The Second Decade," in The All-Volunteer Force After A Decade, ed. Bowman et al. (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986), 266-285.
10. Jerome Johnstone and Jerald G. Bachman, Young Men and Military Service (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 1972).
11. Curtis L. Gilroy, Robert L. Phillips, and John D. Blair. "The All-Volunteer Army: Fifteen Years Later." Armed Forces & Society 16 (1990):329-350.
12. Segal and Bachman, "Change in the All-Volunteer Force."
13. David R. Segal, "Personnel," in American Defense Annual: 1986-1987, ed. Joseph Kryzel (Lexington, Ky: D.C. Heath, 1986), 139-152.
14. Jerald G. Bachman, Lloyd D. Johnston, and Patrick M. O'Malley, The Monitoring the Future Project after Twenty-Two Years: Design and Procedures. MtF Occasional Paper 38 (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social research, 1966).
15. Data from 1975 are not included because of lack of comparability in questionnaire formats. We will occasionally refer to follow-up data where warranted by subgroup differences in the relationship between propensity and actual enlistment.
16. All analyses have been weighted to adjust for absentees. For calculation of confidence intervals, a design effect of 1.5 is suggested.
17. David R. Segal and Jerald G. Bachman, "The Military as an Educational and Training Institution," Youth and Society 10 (1978): 47-64.
18. David R. Segal, Jerald G. Bachman, and Faye Dowdell, "Military Service for Female and Black Youth," Youth and Society 10 (1978): 127-134.
19. Jerald G. Bachman, "American High School Seniors View the Military," Armed Forces & Society 10 (1983): 86-104.
20. Patrick M. O'Malley, Jerald G. Bachman, and Lloyd D. Johnston, "Drug Use and Military Plans of High School Seniors," Youth and Society 10 (1978): 65-77.
21. Jerald G. Bachman, Lee Sigelman, and Greg Diamond. "Self-selection, Socialization, and Distinctive Military Values." Armed Forces & Society 13 (1987): 169-187.
22. Mady W. Segal, "Women's Military Roles Cross-nationally: Past, Present and Future." Gender & Society 9 (1995): 757-775
23. The relationship between propensity and actual enlistment is lower for women than for men. By the third follow-up only forty-one percent of women who in their senior year said they would definitely join the military had done so, compared to about seventy percent of their male peers with similar propensity. See Jerald G. Bachman, Peter Freedman-Doan, David R. Segal, and Patrick M. O'Malley, Trends in Military Propensity and the Propensity-Enlistment Relationship (Ann Arbor, MI: Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 40).
24. David R. Segal and Naomi Verdugo, "Demographic Trends and Personnel Policies as Determinants of the Racial Composition of the Volunteer Army," Armed Forces & Society 20 (1994): 619-632.
25. The association between propensity and actual enlistment is lower for African-Americans than for the sample as a whole. For African Americans in our sample who were high school seniors between 1976 and 1991, of those who said they would definitely join the military, about forty-five percent had done so by the third follow-up survey. See Jerald G. Bachman, Peter Freedman-Doan, David R. Segal, and Patrick M. O'Malley, Trends in Military Propensity and the Propensity-Enlistment Relationship.
26. The relationship between enlistment propensity and actual service among Hispanics is more similar to the pattern for whites than for African Americans. By the third follow-up about sixty percent of those who said they would definitely serve have done so. See Jerald G. Bachman, Peter Freedman-Doan, David R. Segal, and Patrick M. O'Malley, Trends in Military Propensity and the Propensity-Enlistment Relationship.
27. Jere Cohen, Rebecca L. Warner, and David R. Segal. "Military Service and Educational Attainment in the All-Volunteer Force," Social Science Quarterly 76 (1995): 88-104.
28. Relationships between propensity and actual service are similar, regardless of college plans. Of the former group, about 66 percent of those who said that they would definitely serve had done so by the third follow-up. Of the latter group, about 62 percent had served by the third follow-up. See Jerald G. Bachman, David R. Segal, Peter Freedman-Doan, and Patrick M. O'Malley, "Does Enlistment Propensity Predict Accession?" Armed Forces & Society 25 (1998): 59-80.