Warfare and Welfare: Military Service, Combat, and Marital Dissolution

Abstract

This article investigates the impact of military service on the duration of a veteran's first marriage, a topic in the literature with both scant and highly contradictory conclusions. Our sample consisted of 3,800 males from the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1994). Using hazard rate analysis, we estimate the impact of both combat and noncombat assignments on marital duration. Our statistical results imply: (1) self-reported participation in combat increases the hazard rate for marital dissolution by over 60 percent; (2) time of marriage (whether before, during, or after the war) does not affect dissolution, except for wartime marriages during WWII, where the effect is strong; and (3) the effects of war differ significantly across the major U.S. wars; surprisingly, the strongest negative impact on duration occurs with the neglected Korean War veterans.