''Working Around the Military'' Revisited

Spouse Employment in the 2000 Census Data

Nelson Lim, Daniela Golinelli, Michelle Cho

ResearchPublished Feb 15, 2007

Previous studies have shown that military wives — women married to U.S. military service members — are more likely to be unemployed and earning less than their civilian counterparts. But these studies rely on information that is somewhat dated, and they have little to say about military husbands. This study revisits the gaps in employment and earnings between military and civilian wives using the 2000 census, and extends these analyses to include military husbands. Military spouses continue to be at a relative disadvantage in the labor market compared with civilian spouses. Even though policies that target demographic disparities such as mobility, location, and child care may reduce the gaps to a certain extent, they will not affect the portion attributable to unobserved factors that are not captured in the census data, such as employer’s attitude.

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Lim, Nelson, Daniela Golinelli, and Michelle Cho, ''Working Around the Military'' Revisited: Spouse Employment in the 2000 Census Data. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG566.html.
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