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

Abstract

Based on a law enacted in November 1999, males born on or before December 31st 1972 are given the option to benefit from a paid exemption from the compulsory military service in Turkey. Exploiting this natural experiment, we devise an empirical strategy to estimate the intention-to-treat effect of this paid exemption on the education and labor market outcomes of the individuals in the target group. We find that the paid exemption reform reduces the years of schooling among males who are eligible to benefit from the reform relative to the ineligible ones. In particular, the probability of receiving a college degree or above falls among the eligible males. The result is robust to alternative estimation strategies. We find no reduction in education when we implement the same exercises with (i) data on females and (ii) placebo reform dates. The interpretation is that the reform has reduced the incentives to continue education for the purpose of deferring military service. We also find suggestive evidence that the paid exemption reform reduces the labor income for males in the target group. The reduction in earnings is likely due to the reduction in education.JEL codes: C21, I21, I26, J21, J31.

Evaluating the Internal Labor Migration Effects of Compulsory Peacetime Conscription

“…Maurin and Xenogiani (2007) use data from the French Labor Force Survey to show that military service was providing male students with incentives to pursue education after the age of 16, and that those incentives disappeared after the 1997 reform. I find evidence consistent with draft avoidance behavior (Card and Lemieux 2001;Bauer et al 2014;Mouganie 2015;Torun and Tumen 2016) in a sample of individuals born between 1973 and 1982 constructed from the three editions of Generation. Table A2 shows the results of regressing three measures of educational attainment on complete sets of year-of-birth and gender dummies, plus an interaction of the male dummy with a dummy for being born after 1978.…”

“…This literature emphasizes subsequent effects on employment, earnings, and occupation (see e.g. Imbens and van der Klaauw 1995;Maurin and Xenogiani 2007;Granier, Joseph, and Joutard 2011;Grenet, Hart, and Roberts 2011;Bauer et al 2012;Card and Cardoso 2012;Hubers and Webbink 2015;Grönqvist and Lindqvist 2016;Torun and Tumen 2016;Albaek et al 2017). A notable exception is Torun (2016), who finds that the expected interruption of civilian life created by military service reduces the labor force participation and employment of male teenagers who are waiting to be called up.…”

Compulsory military service, civilian wages, and retirement decision

“…This implies that mandatory military service may provide significant work experience for those who might have otherwise spent their careers in low-skilled jobs. Torun and Tumen (2015) conducted research through a natural experiment based on a law enacted in November 1999, under which males born on or before December 31, 1972, were offered the option to pay to be exempted from compulsory military service in Turkey. They found evidence indicating that the mandatory draft gave men an incentive to lengthen their schooling, thus contributing, in part, to raising their incomes.…”

“…In other words, in most countries, military service can be delayed for those who are currently enrolled in school (Angrist and Chen, 2011). Hence, those facing active conscription want to stay in school longer in order to delay their military service, which leads to a build-up of their human capital (Card and Lemieux, 2001; Bauer et al , 2011; Torun and Tumen, 2015).…”

“…15. A similar methodology is applied in studies by Bauer et al (2011), Torun and Tumen (2015), and so on.…”