Effects of Military Service on Earnings and Education, Revisited: Variation by Service Duration, Occupation, and Civilian Unemployment

Abstract

The overriding objective of U.S. military compensation policy is to attract and retain the force necessary to meet the nation s national security objectives. Whether and how military service affects earnings and an individual s likelihood of completing college one determinant of future earnings has implications for military policies related to compensation, recruiting, and retention. For instance, if an individual contemplating military service can be shown evidence that he or she will be well-served by the experience, it could make that person more willing to enlist. On the other hand, if there are economic hardships associated with military service, policymakers responsible for maintaining the force could use information on why this is occurring to help formulate policies to mitigate these hardships. Estimating the effect of military service is complicated by the fact that veterans are likely to be different from nonveterans in ways that are correlated with subsequent economic outcomes but are not observable to the researcher. In a 2011 study (Loughran, Martorell, Miller, and Klerman, 2011 [hereafter LMMK]), RAND researchers overcame this econometric problem by following the approach pioneered by Angrist (1998), in which applicants to the military who enlisted were compared with military-eligible applicants who chose not to enlist, controlling for the detailed covariates available on the military application record. LMMK examined the effects of military service on earnings and educational attainment for all U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force enlisted personnel and found that enlistment slightly increases the likelihood of pursuing higher education and increases earnings but with a substantial earnings dip in the period immediately following separation.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA601938

Entities

People

  • Lindsay Daugherty
  • Mark Borgschulte
  • Paco Martorell
  • Trey Miller

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Business Administration
  • Commerce
  • Department Of Defense
  • Department Of Veterans Affairs
  • Education
  • Employment
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Health Care
  • Military Applications
  • Military Personnel
  • Military Training
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Recruiting
  • Recruits
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Naval Personnel Management
  • Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Care for Military Service Members and Veterans with Limb Loss or Disability.
  • Theoretical Analysis.