Life-Course Timing and Sequencing of Marriage and Military Service and Their Effects on Marital Stability

Abstract

We examine the life-course sequencing hypothesis that marriage before military service has a greater disruptive effect on marital stability than marriage during or after military service. Using event-history data from a I3-year panel study of 2,857 White males from Washington State high schools in 1966, we found that Vietnam combat veterans (n = 610) and Vietnam-era veterans (n = 581) married at the same rate as nonveterans (n = 1,666). Marriages initiated before or during military service in Vietnam did not have a significant negative impact on long-term marital stability. Marrying for the first time after military service, however, increased marital stability. Major historic events create diversity in the life course by altering role choices available to birth cohorts and by influencing role transitions that young people make (Gade, 1991). Compulsory military service during times of war is one of the most pervasive historic events that has altered young people's life-course pathways and outcomes over the last century (Elder, 1986). Because of World War II, many young men married before their military service (Pavalko & Elder, 1990). At the end of World War II, divorce rates rose to a record high. Soldiers who married before their military service had higher divorce rates than those who married after military service (Modell, 1989; Pavalko & Elder, 1990). Research on the effects of Vietnam military service on marriage yields conflicting findings. Some studies based on limited post-war samples of Vietnam veterans suggest that war-related separations and intense combat experiences increased marital instability (Frey-Wouters & Laufer, 1986; Gimbel & Booth, 1994; Laufer & Gallops, 1985; Stellman, Stellman, & Sommer, 1988). Other research that used longitudinal data on large samples of high school students from the Vietnam era found no difference in long-term divorce rates between veterans and nonveterans (Call Teachman, 1991; Card, 1983). Pavalko and Elder (1990) suggested that the limited effect of the Vietnam War on divorce rates was due to soldiers entering the military at a younger age than soldiers during World War II. They argued that the majority of marriages occurred after Vietnam military service, thereby eliminating the strain of war separation on the marriage and reducing the likelihood of divorce. This explanation makes assumptions about marriage patterns during the Vietnam era that have received little attention in the literature. In this article, we compare the marriage patterns of Vietnam combat veterans to Vietnam-era veterans and nonveterans, and we test the hypothesis that the sequencing of marriage before military service increased the probability of divorce for Vietnam veterans. BACKGROUND The transition to adulthood presents adolescents with a complex set of interrelated choices about roles in education, employment, and family that are more or less structured by age-related norms and institutional requirements (Featherman, Hogan, & Sorensen, 1984; Hogan & Astone, 1986). The modal life-course pattern is for young people to complete their education, enter the labor force, and marry (Call & Teachman, 1991; Hogan, 1978; Marini, 1984). Divergence from modal patterns of role-taking negatively affects subsequent life-course outcomes through a reduction in fit between personal behavior and the structure of schools and employment that are organized to process birth cohorts (Hogan, 1980; Rindfuss, Swicegood, & Rosenfeld, 1987; Spenner, Otto, & Call, 1982). During World War II, younger men who hoped to avoid the draft through a family deferment rushed to marry (Modell, 1989). Modell also found that soldiers married in surprisingly large numbers during military service. Soldiers who delayed marriage until their military duty was completed married shortly after they left the military. At all ages, World War II veterans were more likely to marry than their nonveteran peers (Modell & Steffey, 1988). …