| Popis: |
Military service can have important life course effects on veterans’ marital history and family structure. More specifically, research shows that the timing of entry and exit from military service can impact these family variables (Settersten, 2006). This presentation uses data from 1479 veterans and 6493 civilians from the Honolulu Asian-Aging Study to assess the effects of military service on marital status and fecundity. After controlling for demographic and psychosocial variables, we found an interaction between age at the beginning of World War II (WWII) and Military Status on likelihood of marriage, assessed 25 years later. Compared to civilians, veterans who were older at the beginning of WWII had a greater chance of never marrying, odds ratio (OR) = 0.90, while for civilians it was the opposite, OR = 1.09, p’s < .0001. There were no differences based on military service for ever being divorced. In relation to family size, we found a significant three-way interaction between Education, Military Status and Marital Status in 1941 (i.e., being married or not). Among those who were not married in 1941, civilians had significantly more children than veterans, across all levels of education. However, among those who were married in 1941, there were no differences in the number of children based on Veteran Status, Education Level or their interaction. Overall, results suggest greater disruption on marriage and family status for veterans who had not yet married and started families at the beginning on WWII, despite a short mean military service period of 2.7 years. |
