Skills Mismatch? Military Service, Combat Occupations, and Civilian Earnings

Abstract

Research has evaluated the impact of military service on socioeconomic outcomes, but little research has assessed the association between such outcomes and military occupations. The following article examines this relationship by analyzing the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. It evaluates whether military occupations produce associations that are consistent with hypotheses based on theories of skills mismatch, selection, or turning points. Contrary to expectations, veterans of combat occupations did not have different earnings from those of other occupations, which suggests that any apparent effects of combat exposure reflect neither skills mismatch nor selection into these roles. Yet veterans earned less than nonveterans at the same years of combined military and civilian experience, regardless of occupation. These findings indicate that employers did not value time in the military as much as time in the civilian labor market.