The Effects of Military Change of Station Moves on Spousal Earnings
Abstract
This report studies how changes in job location for active duty members of the US military affect the earnings of their civilian spouses. Previous research has found that military spouses have lower earnings and employment than people with the same age, sex and education who are married to civilians, and that having experienced more military moves in the past is associated with lower spousal earnings. But military spouses may differ from civilian spouses along other dimensions that also affect their earnings such as labor force attachment. We investigate the causal impact of military moves on spousal earnings by creating a unique longitudinal database that tracks over 900,000 military spouses over the period 2001-2012, based on data from two administrative sources military records on personnel and their dependents, and Social Security earnings records. This database allows us to estimate the effects of moves controlling for some key observable characteristics of the member and household. More importantly, because we observe spousal earnings before and after moves, we can estimate regression models that control for unmeasured heterogeneity across spouses that affect earnings.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1019767
Entities
People
- Amalia R. Miller
- Jeremy Burke
Organizations
- RAND Corporation