Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2015

Keywords

Military service, Alcohol use

Abstract

It is well known that enlistees and veterans in the United States are more likely to use alcohol than civilians. However, most of this research is potentially biased in that it often does not employ control variables (other than age) and is based on cross-sectional data. Much of this research also fails to consider the relationship between military service and alcohol use among women. Using longitudinal data taken from the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth, we investigate the relationship between military service and alcohol consumption employing a fixed-effects approach. We find that military service appears to encourage young men to consume alcohol. It is also the case that the effect of military service is not limited to the time that men spend in the military given that male veterans are also more likely to consume alcohol than are comparable nonveterans. We find, however, that women who serve, both enlistees and veterans, are less likely to drink than their civilian counterparts.

Publication Title

Armed Forces & Society

Volume

41

Issue

3

First Page

460

Last Page

476

Required Publisher's Statement

This article was published open access.

Sage Journals

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X14543848

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Armed forces--Alcohol use--United States

Subjects - Names (LCNAF)

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Labor Market Experience (U.S.)

Geographic Coverage

United States

Genre/Form

articles

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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Included in

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