THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF MILITARY FAMILIES AND CHILDRENMilitary Child Education Coalition Training Seminar

Molly CleverCenter for Research on Military OrganizationUniversity of Marylandmclever@umd.edu

Objectives

What do we know?

How do we know it?

What do we need to know?

Defining Military Family Who is a military family member?

President & Joint Chiefs’ reports: “Supporting communities” Immediate and extended family of active duty,

Guard, Reserve, veterans, and those who died in service

Research: Household dependents Legal spouses and dependent children (22

years and younger)

What do we need to know? A decade of war

Increased strain on service members and families

Mission readiness requires timely data about well-being and satisfaction of families

Data Sources Department of Defense

Demographic and administrative Diversity of military families Comparisons with civilian counterparts

Sources: DoD: Demographics Profile of the Military Community Office of Personnel and Readiness: Population

Representation in the Military Services DoDEA: Annual Demographics Report and Report

Cards Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC): limited

access personnel and family data

Data Sources Research organizations

Quantitative and qualitative data analysis Perceptions, outcomes, trajectories

Sources: Military Child Education Coalition RAND Pew Research Center

Data Sources Academic scholarship

Military sociology, public policy, public health, medicine, psychology

Varying disciplinary approaches Sources:

Military-focused journals: Armed Forces & Society Political and Military Sociology Military Psychology Military Medicine

Family, Education, and Public Health journals

Understanding the Military Family Population Appropriate comparisons

Employed and relatively young Age distribution

Military: 18 and over, two-thirds under age 30 Civilians: 18-45 in the labor force, evenly distributed

Gender distribution Military: about 15% women Civilian labor force: 47.6% women

Dynamic population Move between active, Guard/Reserve and veteran

communities Activated Guard/Reserve nearly impossible to identify in data

General Demographics  Active Duty Selected Reserve*

Comparable Civilian Population**

Total Population 1,411,425 855,867 91,208,300      Average Age 28.6 32.1 31.9       Sex      Female 14.5% 18.0% 47.3%Male 85.5% 82.0% 52.7%

       Race      White or Caucasion 69.8% 75.7% 72.2%Black or African American 16.9% 15.0% 12.9%Asian  3.8% 3.1% 5.7%All other races and multiple races 9.6% 6.2% 9.2%       

Ethnicity      

Hispanic 11.2% 9.8% 19.2%Non-Hispanic 88.8% 90.2% 80.8%       

Education (highest degree achieved)      No High School diploma or GED 0.5% 2.4% 10.7%High School diploma or GED 79.1% 76.8% 60.1%Bachelor's degree 11.3% 14.3% 20.0%Advanced degree 7.0% 5.5% 9.2%Unknown 2.1% 1.0% --

       Marital Status      Now married 56.6% 47.7% 43.0%Divorced/Separated 4.5% 7.3% 10.0%Widowed/other 0.1% 0.2% 0.4%Never married 38.8% 44.7% 46.1%       Children      

With dependent children at home 44.2% 43.3% 43.1%Average number of children at home 2.0 2.0 2.0

Perceived meritocracy of military influences minority decisions (Segal 1989)

Education requirements exclude most without high school diploma

Active duty members more married, less divorced

Same number of children across groups

Notes: *Selected Reserve is comprised of those members of the Ready Reserve who train with reserve units throughout the year and participate in active duty training annually. The Ready Reserve also includes the Individual Ready Reserve and the Inactive National Guard components, which are comprised of members who have typically served on active duty in the past but are currently not participating in regular organized training and are therefore not included in these data.**The comparable population is defined as 18 to 45 year old civilians in the labor force.Source: Active duty and Selective Reserve data from DoD 2011 Demographics Profile. Civilian data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2011 American Community Survey, obtained through IPUMS.

Marriage and Family Formation

1973-2013: Transition from draft to AVF

Draft era: “if the Army wanted

you to have a wife it would have issued you one”

AVF: “enter single, marry

young”

Percent Married Among Active Duty Military Personnel and Civilian Counterparts,* 2011

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45+

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

MALE MILITARY FEMALE MILITARY MALE CIVILIAN FEMALE CIVILIAN

*Civilian counterparts are 18-44 year olds in the labor force.Source: Office of the Secretary of Defense. Population Representation in the Military Services, 2011.

Percent Married Among Junior Enlisted and Comparable Civilians

36%37%

24%

33%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Men Women

Junior Enlisted (E1-E4)

Civilian with comparableearnings (ages 18-24)

Sources: DMDC Active Duty Family Marital Status Report (2011), March 2010 Current Population Survey

Young Marriage: Push and Pull Factors

Conservative values regarding marriage and gender roles (Franke 2001, Lundquist 2004) Influences marital/family decisions among civilians, but effect is small

Retention needs family friendly policies Health coverage, on-base day care, family programs and activities Moving and housing allowances determined by family size

Contextual factors Frequent moves Scarcity of off-base housing Potentially dangerous assignments Teachman (2009): personal and contextual factors intersect to

disincentivize cohabitation among military males in relationships, esp. African Americans.

Children

Age Distribution of Children in Active Duty and Guard/Reserve Families by Service Branch, Fy2011

Army

Navy

Marine

Corps

Air Fo

rce

Total

Active D

uty Army

Navy

Marine

Corps

Air Fo

rce

Total

Selec

ted Rese

rve0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Pre-school (0 to 5 years) Primary school (6 to 14 years) High school and above (15 to 22 years)

Active Duty Selected Reserve

Schooling About 13% of military children in DoDEA schools Remaining 87% in civilian schools

Many in high military-presence communities Educators in non-military communities have become

more responsive to challenges facing military children over past 10 years (MCEC 2012)

Challenges in non-military presence communities Particularly children in Guard/Reserve families Isolated from on-base resources Only child in school with deployed parent

Family Status of Active Duty Force by Race/Ethnicity and Gender

White, non-Hisp

anic

Non-white, non-Hisp

anic

Hispanic, all Races

White, non-Hisp

anic

Non-white, non-Hisp

anic

Hispanic, all Races

Men Women

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Dual service couple without childrenMarried to civilian without childrenSingle, no childrenDual service couple with childrenMarried to civilian with childrenSingle Parent

Family Dynamics Socioeconomic status

Enlisted/Officer = Blue collar/White collar Military is more “blue collar” (83%) than

civilian labor force (61%) Spouse employment

Unemployment and underemployment Earnings penalties

Dual service and single parents Family separation Distance from extended family networks

Family Transitions and the Military Lifestyle Military families are diverse and dynamic

Move between active, Guard/Reserve, and veteran communities

The “greedy institution” framework (Segal 1986, Segal & DeAngelis 2013) Military and family compete for time, energy and

commitment Almost all will experience:

Frequent moves Deployments Separation and reunion

Military lifestyle presents both challenges and opportunities, hardships and advantages

Geographic Mobility Military families are

both “tied migrants” and “tied stayers” (Cooney et al. 2011)

Debunking the “military family syndrome” myth Moving and behavioral

problems Parental attitudes Supportive context

Family Separation Branches experience different operational

tempos Army: 39% of force, 54% of deployments in 2009 Navy: 6 month rotations on land and at sea Guard/Reserve comprised one-third of all

deployments in OEF and OIF Older and younger children face different

stressors Young children: grief, confusion, and loss Teenagers: understand dangers, renegotiation of

family roles

Family Separation At all ages, well-being of residual parent

predicts children’s well-being 68% of teenagers report helping remaining parent

cope most difficult problem (RAND 2011) Length of separation matters

Longer cumulative deployment time corresponds with increased school performance problems (RAND 2011, Engel et al. 2010)

Guard/Reserve children reported more behavioral problems than active duty children (RAND 2011)

Family Reunion Re-negotiation of

roles 54% of teenagers

reported fitting returned parent back into home routine most difficult problem

On the Homefront Military families become veteran families

Approximately 250,000 family members left military in 2011

Surge in attention to military families during 10 years of war Family needs will continue after drawdowns Continuity and transformation in family

well-being needs

Research Recommendations Longitudinal research that follows diverse

family forms through various transitions Gap in knowledge about infants and young

children Limited information on Guard/Reserve families Need for integrated data between

active-Guard/Reserve-veteran transitions Integrate research on military children with

civilian children Unique environment for understanding impact of

policies and programs on well-being

Policy Recommendations Flexible and

adaptive approaches Diversity of family

forms Gender integration

and same-sex families

Integrate with evaluation literature in civilian family programs