Marriage and the military: Evidence that those who serve marry earlier and divorce earlier

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 36, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 420-438

  Hogan, Paul F ^a   Seifert, Rita F ^a  

^a LEWIN GROUP   (United States)

Author keywords

Divorce; Logistic regression; Marriage; Military

Indexed keywords

EID: 77949584363     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X09351228     Document Type: Article

References (34)

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29. U.S. Department of Defense, Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A) September 30, 2006. http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0609.pdf.
30. The American Community Survey does not contain information on the age that a person entered the Armed Forces, age at first marriage, number of marriages, or if ever divorced.
31. For example, to the extent that the military screens out homosexuals, the marriage rate for those who have served may be greater than that for the general population.
32. There was some concern that the American Community Survey in 2005 did not include persons living in group quarters, which could bias the results. For those who are on active duty, it may appear that the marriage rate is higher than the civilian rate because single members tend to live in the barracks and would not have been sampled. The results in Table 10 showed that those who have more than two years of active-duty service but who are not currently on active duty have higher rates than civilian counterparts, suggesting that sample selection bias was not driving these results. We also briefly analyzed the 2006 American Community Survey, which included persons living in group quarters, such as military barracks and college dormitories. Using the same selection criteria in 2006, 52.64 percent of veterans were ever married (compared to 54.64 percent in 2005) and 30.04 percent of nonveterans were ever married (compared to 31.48 percent in 2005).
33. An employer contributes more toward health insurance for a married employee than for a single employee. However, the married employee also pays more than the single employee.
34. U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabMS-2.pdf.