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Title: The All Volunteer Force and American Youth: An Attitudinal and Demographic Comparison
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Firestone, Juanita M. |
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The All Volunteer Force and American Youth: An Attitudinal and Demographic Comparison Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1984. DAI-A 46/04, p. 1105, Oct 1985 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): All-Volunteer Force (AVF); Military Personnel; Military Recruitment; Sex Roles; Well-Being The primary focus of this research is on the variabilities in attitudes among civilian and military youth in America. Under conscription, military service was seen as an act of citizenship and contribution to the collective well-being. The emerging all-volunteer structure replaces this sense of duty with motivations based on labor market considerations: pay, benefits, alternative employment opportunities, etc. Data for analysis were obtained from the youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) of the Youth Labor Market Experience conducted by the Center for Human Resource Research of Ohio State University. A comparison of the demographic profiles of civilian and military youth revealed several important differences. As expected, blacks are overrepresented and women are severely underrepresented. The Military group is somewhat older than the civilian group. Individuals in the military with the exception of white males are more likely to have completed high school but less likely to continue their education beyond a high school degree. The military group is also underrepresentative of white males with at least a high school diploma. Next we compare attitudes about job satisfaction and sex appropriate roles using multivariate analysis. We found that overall job satisfaction was lower in the military sample, and that interaction patterns for each group were different. The analyses of attitudes towards sex roles revealed that military status itself did not directly affect perceptions of sex appropriate roles. However, being in the military interacted with the other control variables to reinforce and intensify present attitudes. Thus, women in the military held less traditional sex role attitudes than civilian women, while military men had more traditional sex role attitudes than civilian men. Our conclusions are that criteria affecting the attitudinal dimensions inherent in choosing a job or occupation are not universal constants (ie., always guided by market place standards), but are specific to the organizational environment. In other words, the present format for recruitment and retention in the All Volunteer Force--economic incentives--may not be the best means of insuring a representative and voluntary military. |
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Bibliography Citation
Firestone, Juanita M. The All Volunteer Force and American Youth: An Attitudinal and Demographic Comparison. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1984. DAI-A 46/04, p. 1105, Oct 1985. |