Effects of Mandatory Military Service on Wages and Other Socioeconomic Outcomes

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, we estimate the effects of mandatory military service by exploiting the post-cold war decrease in the need for soldiers causing a substantial number of potential conscripts not to be drafted into the German military. Specifically, using previously unavailable information on degree of fitness in the military's medical exam as a control variable, we test for the effects of mandatory military service on wages; employment; marriage/partnership status; and satisfaction with work, financial situation, health, family life, friends, and life in general. We find almost no statistically significant effects of this 6 to 9 month career interruption for young German men, with the exception of hourly wage, which shows a negative point estimate of -15 percent with a large confidence interval of between -30 and -0.2 percent. This interval estimate is consistent with previous findings for the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14352

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Coercive Labor Markets
• Subject: career breaks ; conscription ; wages ; employment ; life satisfaction ; natural experiment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Puhani, Patrick A. ; Sterrenberg, Margret K.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/236383
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET