Editor's note: This is the second of three articles in this issue's special section on military families.
AbstractPrior empirical research on the earnings penalty of being a tied-migrant has focused primarily on the working wives of servicemen. Over the last couple of decades the increased number of women in the armed forces makes it feasible to study the earnings of another group of tied-migrants, the husbands of servicewomen. Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, Sample Edited Detail File (SEDF), we show that there is a consistently lower age-earnings pattern for military husbands as well as wives. These annual earnings patterns capture the essence of, but do not provide an explanation for, the observed annual earnings differences. These differences are evaluated using multivariate analysis accounting for sample selectivity. Moreover, decomposition analysis strongly suggests that demand-side factors account for a greater portion of the differences in annual earnings than has been previously acknowledged and, therefore, that retention might respond favorably to job matching assistance and/or employer hiring incentives offered military spouses.
Identifying the earnings penalty associated with being a tied mover has focused on the working wives of servicemen. However, the number of women serving in the armed forces now makes it feasible to study the earnings losses of a group of tied-mover males, the husbands of servicewomen. Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, the authors identified a sample of such men and compare their earnings to civilian husbands of working civilian wives to extend and generalize on tied-mover earnings effects. Multivariate analysis accounting for selection bias and controlling for migration, demographic, household, and labor market characteristics shows that military husbands earn about 70 percent of civilian husbands, whereas military wives earned about 50 percent of civilian wives. Since different estimation procedures provide comparable outcomes regardless of gender, these results reveal a detrimental earnings effect for military husbands similar to earlier estimates for military wives.
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