his own oil-related engineering business in the basement of our house in the small town of Laurel, Montana.
My bedroom was located adjacent to my parents’ basement office, so I had a front-row seat to the day-to-day toils and tribulations of their start-up experience. I saw it all. I saw the hard parts of their start-up experience, like the long hours and constant responsibilities. But I also saw the incredible benefits, like the flexibility it provided my parents to be able to attend my sports competitions, no matter when or where they were. I was a witness to their hard work, and it gave me great respect for my family’s legacy of entrepreneurship.
Unbeknownst to me, it would also teach me many lessons that would lend a hand in my success later in life.
The State of Military Spouses
Now, fast-forward thirty years. Once I transitioned from the active-duty Air Force to a more at-home role, I was able to engage in more activities with other military spouses. Suddenly, I was immersed in military life from a spouse’s perspective. This was a turning point, where I realized just how many of the spouses around me were not working.
At first I just chalked it up to the fact that most of the women were raising kids and had chosen to stay home. Or maybe it was because we military families moved so much that people stopped trying to find jobs? Maybe it was just that military spouses didn’t have the desire to work? But after three years of being home with my kids, trying to find the perfect job to fit around kids, military life, and moving, I realized that none of those statements were entirely true. It wasn’t as black and white as I originally thought.
The work equation for military spouses is not a simple binary decision. There are a myriad of variables that go into whether a woman works or not. What I knew from chatting with my fellow spouses was that nearly all of my friends had the desire to work; however, the available options were not always a good fit. At that point, my eyes were opened to the fact that not only do military spouses need more creative and flexible options that work around their demanding lives, but they possess the very skills and perseverance necessary to create these opportunities themselves.
My hunch was confirmed once I began doing my research and looked into the numbers. And in fact, the numbers were more sobering than I expected. According to the Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey, 55% of spouses reported that they need to work and 90% reported that they want to work. Yet despite their desire and capability, the military spouse suffers from a 38% underemployment rate and three times the current civilian unemployment rate.
The rate of military spouse employment is something the Department of Defense has monitored closely over the last twenty-five years, since it directly affects service member retention. Consistent research dating back as far as 1981 confirms that civilian military spouses of active-duty personnel work less and earn less money than non-military spouses of the same demographics.
The most recent research was completed in 2015 through the DMDC (Defense Manpower Data Center) Survey of Active-Duty Spouses and the Blue Star Families Annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey in 2016. Both provided some healthy insight. First, these surveys concluded that the large majority of spouses are females under the age of forty. This isn’t shocking, but it does confirm that the large majority of military families are still quite traditional, with men in the role of the active-duty member and women as the spouse. Second, military spouses’ educational achievements exceed the level of their civilian peers during important career-developing years. It is interesting to note that spouses gain four-year degrees at a rate of 5% higher than their civilian counterparts, from the ages of 25-30. In that same age range, military spouses also obtain graduate degrees at double the frequency of similar civilians. This is important, because it shows that the military spouse population is ambitious and capable of obtaining higher education at a pace that makes them highly desirable as employees.
Unfortunately, there is undeniable research demonstrating that despite their great qualifications, military spouses face higher unemployment than the rest of the country. The results will vary depending on which agency is measuring; however, all studies lead to the same conclusion. In 2010, a RAND Corporation study found that 12% of military spouses were unemployed. Five years later, that gap rose. In 2015, the unemployment rate of military spouses hovered around 18%. That is more than three times the civilian unemployment rate for women over twenty!
And it gets worse.
Let’s move away from unemployment, and consider the underemployment of military spouses. Based on the most robust evaluation of underemployment completed in a RAND study in 2011, a whopping 38% of military spouses were underemployed (compared to 6% of civilian spouses based on educational level). This means that 38% of military spouses are employed in jobs not commensurate with their levels of experience or education. And to rub a little salt in the wound, they earn anywhere from 20-38% less than the average wage of their non-military peers in the same area of occupation.
If it wasn’t obvious before, this research highlights that there is a distinct problem. Military spouses want to work. Military spouses are capable and willing to work. However, military life creates numerous challenges to working in the traditional employment system. We know all this to be true. But questions remain: What can we do about this situation? And, why should the average American care about fixing this problem?
The Costs are Real
The reality is this bleak employment outlook for military spouses creates a culture of underemployment that costs the Department of Defense and the country dearly. A 2010 RAND study showed 42% of military spouses were not in the labor force. Add the previously mentioned 38% underemployment rate to an 18% unemployment rate, and it creates a problem where a large majority of spouses aren’t contributing to the country through earnings and income tax. That lost opportunity is actually a burden to the US economy and should create a sense of urgency regarding a need to remedy the problem.
When you break down the total lost income tax, unemployment benefits, and total health costs associated with unemployment, the unrealized bill it creates is absolutely astonishing. Experts estimate that the total estimated cost of military spouse underemployment is somewhere between $710,344,000 and $1,068,508,000. A little alarming, right?!
This may be a shocking price tag, but the costs don’t stop there.
The other costs of military spouse underemployment may be less easily measured on a survey, but anyone in the military community knows they are real. One of them is the correlation between overall life satisfaction for military spouses (and family members) and service member retention rates. As a spouse, I can tell you for a fact that the statement, “a happy wife equals a happy life” rings true when it comes to longevity of service.
In the 2016 Military Family Lifestyle Survey by Blue Star Families, the top three concerns reported by spouses, active-duty members and veterans alike were “military pay/benefits,” “change in retirement benefits,” and “military spouse employment.” The study went on to mention that the three most common reasons people left the military were military retirement (inevitable), completion of service obligation (also inevitable), and family reasons. Retirements and fulfilled commitments are inevitable and hard to control. But “family reasons” are very much within our control.
When spouses are satisfied with their work/life situation, they are much more likely to encourage and help their service member to continue their career in the military. In a blog post titled “Reflections in the Rearview Mirror,” milpreneur and writer Angela Uebelacker describes being a military spouse and the challenges it brings to raising a family. She perfectly describes it as being “simply not that simple.”
In fact, studies done on the civilian population show there is a direct correlation between employment and individual well-being. As the