Above and beyond the call. Long-term real earnings effects of British male military conscription in the post-war years

Abstract

Abstract:We add to the literature on the long-term economic effects of male military service. We concentrate on post-war British conscription into the armed services from 1949 to 1960. It was called National Service and applied to males aged 18 to 26. Based on a regression discontinuity design we estimate the effect of military service on the earnings of those required to serve through conscription. We argue that, in general, we should not expect to find large long-term real earnings among conscripts compared to later birth cohorts of males who were not eligible for call-up. Our empirical evidence firmly rejects the view that conscription entails relative long-term real earnings differences.JEL Classification: J24, J31, N44

The effects of compulsory military service exemption on education and labor market outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment

“…Bauer, Bender, Paloyo, and Schmidt (2012) show using a regression discontinuity design that compulsory military service has virtually zero effects on labor market outcomes in Germany. A similar result is documented by Grenet, Hart, and Roberts (2011) using British data. Card and Cardoso (2009) find using data from Portugal that peacetime conscription has a positive effect on the labor market outcomes of low-educated males, while its effect on better-educated males is nil.…”

Do Guns Displace Books? – The Impact of Compulsory Military Service on Educational Attainment

“…Methodologically, the present paper is closest to Buonanno [2006], Bauer et al [2009], and Grenet, Hart and Roberts [2011]. These papers take advantage of the discontinuity in the probability of being drafted into military service across birth cohorts.…”

“…In fact, he finds little evidence to suggest that the demand for higher education is negatively affected by conscription. Grenet, Hart and Roberts [2011] use the start of conscription in the UK to identify the effects of conscription on long-term real earnings. Their findings indicate that conscription had no significant effect on such earnings.…”

Compulsory Military Service in Germany Revisited

“…On the other hand, an earlier paper by the current authors [Bauer et al 2009] find no similar effect for conscripts in Germany. While Buonanno [2006] finds a small penalty for conscripts in the UK, Grenet, Hart and Roberts [2010] report no significant effects for the same country. Other outcome variables of interest, such as demand for education, have also been examined.…”

“…Other studies using the same approach include Grenet, Hart and Roberts [2010] and Buonanno [2006] for the UK. In these papers, cohorts of men facing different probabilities to be drafted for CMS are compared against each other to identify the effect of conscription.…”