Away from Home: The Effect of Military Deployment on Spousal Labor Force Participation
29 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2007 Last revised: 25 Jan 2008
Date Written: October 14, 2007
Abstract
Over 1,000,000 service members were deployed away from their families in the first 5 years since the start of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq, and over 350,000 service members experienced two or more deployments. Although deployments disrupt the contribution of service members to household production, little evidence exist about the effect of deployments on spouses. This paper uses unit deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq to identify an effect of deployment on spousal labor force participation. Combining administrative pay records with responses to surveys of active duty personnel, I find that deployment reduces spousal labor force participation by 2.8 percentage points. This reaction varies by the age of the youngest child in the family. Deployment reduces spousal labor force participation by 4.9 percentage points in families with children under age 6. I also find that spouses decrease their labor force participation several months before service members are actually deployed, and return to the labor force several months after service members return from deployment.
Keywords: household shocks, labor supply, military spouse, instrumental variables, deployment
JEL Classification: J21, J22, J44
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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