Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
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North-Holland
Psychology
13 (1992) 153-166
153
November
*
Social Sciences, Alexandria,
USA
4, 1991
Dual career or two earner couples have been a significant and a growing component
of both the
civilian and the military labor force. Further. the number of dual military career couples has
increased as the number of women in the U.S. Armed Forces has increased.
In this paper, we
hypothesized
that career intentions
of these couples were interdependent
and a function of
variables from economics, psychology, and sociology. Results, based on the 1985 U.S. Army Dual
Career Survey, supported
this hypothesis. Soldiers intentions to remain in the US. Army were
positively related to perceived spouses intention to stay in the Army, family income, family size,
career commitment,
and job satisfaction.
Policy implications of these results are discussed in the
context of military downsizing.
1. Introduction
0167.4870/92/$05.00
% 1992 - Elsevier
Science
Publishers
2. Background
and literature
review
In the 1980s the U.S. Army dual career couples comprised approximately six percent of the total active force of about 775,000. About
8% of the married officers and 12% of the married enlisted soldiers
were in dual career marriages. The Army, which is 11% female, has
86,000 women in total. Women soldiers have been more likely to have
a soldier as a marital partner than are men soldiers (Moskos 1990).
For example, Teplitzky
et al. (1988) report that 63% of married
enlisted women and 68% of married women officers were in dual
Army career marriages.
Although
the U.S. Armys joint domicile policy and program of
co-locating
husbands and wives who are serving on active duty may
155
have contributed
to the growth of dual Army career couples, this
program is probably more crucial to couple retention than to couple
accession or formation.
Marsh (1990) noted that, starting with the
fiscal year 1990, the U.S. Army can expect to lose an annual average
of more than 5,000 noncommissioned
officers with from 7 to 18 years
of service. The current official U.S. target is to reduce the total Army
strength by 25% by 1995. This downsizing may differentially
affect
dual Army career couples if, as we hypothesize,
couples make joint
career decisions. If this is so, the Army may well lose both service
members if one of the soldiers is forced out or induced to leave by
proposed incentive programs. Further, the loss of dual career couples
will adversely impact women soldiers since the vast majority of married women soldiers are in dual Army career marriages.
The available scientific literature on dual military career couples is
mostly restricted
to variables of a single discipline, namely, that of
social psychology (Teplitzky et al. 1988). The literature
in economics
concentrates
only on the economic
variables such as earnings of
individual soldiers. For example, Warner and Goldberg (1984) related
retention to the Annualized
Cost of Leaving (ACOL) the U.S. Navy.
A limitation of this model is that it considers only the earnings of an
individual soldier instead of the more appropriate
family earnings.
Hogan (1990) included earnings of both the members of the family but
excluded socio-psychological
variables. Consequently,
policy decisionmakers are limited in their options for modifying existing policies or
adopting new policies that can increase retention.
Our research reported here attempted
to overcome this limitation by incorporating
family earnings and other socio-psychological
variables in our analyses.
3. Method
The retention intention of dual Army career couples implies career
commitment
- a psychological
variable. Typically, psychologists
consider intention to be an intervening variable between the antecedent
conditions
for behavioral
action and the actual behavior.
As an
intervening
variable, intention
is usually highly correlated
with the
respective behavioral outcome. For example, Motowidlo and Lawton
(1984) correlated
the retention intentions and actual retention behav-
ior of married as well as single enlisted soldiers in the U.S. Army. The
Beta coefficients of retention behavior on retention intention for their
two Army samples of enlisted soldiers were 0.59 and 0.61. Johnston
(1988) has shown similar results for U.S. Army junior officers. Therefore, career intention
appears to be a good proxy variable for the
actual retention behavior of officers and enlisted soldiers. An advantage of using retention intention (ex ante) instead of actual retention
behavior (ex post) data from a policy perspective
is that the Army
management
may be able to intervene
to change the intentions
of
those who might be negative toward or indecisive about an Army
career.
We expected several psychological,
sociological, and economic variables to influence
the career intentions
of dual U.S. Army career
soldiers. More specifically, we hypothesized
that the career intentions
of a soldier primarily would be a function of the soldiers perceived
career intention of his/her
spouse. The remaining psychological variables consisted of job satisfaction and job tenure. Increases in either
of these variables tends to enhance organizational
commitment
which,
in turn, tends to enhance retention intention.
The sociological variables were family happiness and family size.
Wilenskys (1960) theory of spillover between work life and family life
provided the theoretical
rationale for including the family happiness
variable.
The three economic variables were: family earnings, payments for
home mortgages or rents, and car loan payments.
The hypothesized
relationships
of the explanatory
variables
referred to above with the dependent
variable of Army soldier career
intention were as follows:
Based on the theory of
(a> Perception of spouses career intention.
interdependent
utility functions, we expected to find that when the
perceived
retention
intentions
of ones spouse are high, ones own
retention intention will be high as well. The interdependence
hypothesis is based on the growth of human capital due to a commonality
of
interests (Benham 19741. For example, physicians are more likely to
marry physicians,
perhaps
to expand their knowledge
for mutual
benefit. The U.S. Armys joint domicile program of co-location helps
to foster this interdependent
relationship.
The joint domicile program
of the Army does not help co-locate all dual career couples. Segal
H. Lakhani,
P.A. Gadr
/ Career deci.sions
couples
157
were
not ap-
(b)
Family earnings.
An increase in family earnings was expected to
increase the probability of making the Army a career for both husband and wife due to an increase in family economic welfare brought
about by the combined
military compensation
of the dual career
couple (Lakhani 1988). Based on Hogans work on the family ACOL
model (Hogan 19901, we also hypothesized
that an increase in either a
soldiers own earnings/ income or a spouses earnings/ income would
tend to increase retention probability.
(c)
Car payments.
We hypothesized
that an increase in car payments would tend to be associated with an increased probability
of
retaining dual career soldiers since these payments, presumably,
reflect an increase in economic well-being
associated
with the U.S.
Army service. Most of the cars financed by these soldiers are likely to
be relatively new cars. This hypothesis is based on the institutional
framework of car financing in the United States where cars that are
older than seven years are rarely financed. For example, the National
Automobile
Dealers Association
(1988) reference
book used by car
financing agencies does not list values of cars older than seven years.
(e)
Number of children.
Having a greater number of children in the
family was expected to induce a soldier to have a greater propensity
for staying in the Army because of the family-related
subsidized
programs provided by the U.S. Army (Smith 1988). These programs
4. Data
To help understand
the career decision-making
processes of dual
career couples better, the U.S. Army Research Institute conducted
a
survey of dual career officers and enlisted personnel
in 1985. Five
hundred and ninety-five dual Army career soldiers were sampled from
an administrative
list of all dual Army career couples assigned to each
of nine major Army installations in the United States. The sample was
limited to those couples where both husband and wife were assigned
to the same post and unmarried cohibiters were excluded. Most of the
installations
where the respondents
were located were in remote
places where the supply of housing was relatively limited. A survey
H. Lukhuni,
Table 1
Descriptive
statistics
of key variables
Variable
Research
15)
Retention intention of
respondent
Perceived spouses
career intention
Family income ($/month)
Own income
Spouses income
Mortgage or rent ($/month)
Car payment(s) ($/month)
Number of children
Years of service
Family happiness
Job satisfaction
Source:
Min.
Max.
SD
0.5
0.5
0.6
2,584
1,31Y
1,217
461
259
0.6
8.5
3
0.6
6,763
3,404
3,404
2,332
767
3
2)
5
0.5
1,ll~S
586
569
442
lhl
0.9
5.2
1
0.5
0
0
= 38.
Institute,
Survey (10X5).
H. Lakhani,
P.A. Gadr
/ Career decisiom
161
Table
of retention
intentions
variable
Standard
regression
error
coefficient
0.15
0.916
0.448 h
0.16
Mortgage/rent
0.536 I
0.232 h
I
0.01
0.01
0.09
0.7X8
0.24
Family happiness
0.144
0.17
Intercept
0.386
0.54
payment (dollars/month)
0.401 h
Number
0.755
of children
Years of service
0.0
N = X5
Dependent
variable
p < 0.01,
The standardized
probit coefficient
for the psychosocial
variable,
job satisfaction,
was positive and significant (0.788). U.S. Army soldiers who were satisfied with their jobs had a higher probability
of
making the U.S. Army a career. The third most important
variable
was family size measured
by the number of children (0.755). The
fourth and the fifth contributors
to the increase in the probability of
career retention
intentions
were the economic
variables of family
earnings (0.448) and car payments (0.401). These are followed by the
psychosocial
variables, career commitment,
denoted by the years of
service (0.232), and family happiness (0.144). Since all of these variables contribute
to the probability
of staying in the U.S. Army, the
U.S. Army management
may find it useful to attempt to manipulate
any or all of them to influence career intentions.
The only negative predictor
of the probability
of staying was the
mortgage or rent payments variable - increased
rent or mortgage
payments reduced the probability
of retention
( - 0.536). This result
suggests that the U.S. Department
of Defense
policy of paying a
variable housing allowance
dependent
on the local cost of living
probably should be continued and perhaps increased if one wishes to
encourage
Army retention.
Even in the face of downsizing, the military services may need to increase housing allowances to encourage
the retention of soldiers at strategic locations.
of own income,
Standardized
variable
Intercept
Own income
Spouses income
Family income
Note: Dependent
a p < 0.01.
spouses
variable
equals
income
and family
income
on retention
coefficients
Eq. (1)
Eq. (2)
- 1.293
2.385
- 0.673
_
- 1.786
_
unity if respondent
163
- 1.45
2.249 <
intends
to stay.
To determine
the relative effects of ones own income, spouses
income, and family income on retention intentions, we estimated two
separate
probit equations.
The standardized
probit coefficients
for
these equations are reported in table 3. The results for eq. (1) show
that the coefficient for ones own income was positive and significant
(p < 0.01). Spouses income is negative but not significant. Therefore,
the importance
of spouses income is diluted. Such a dilution is
further confirmed
in the results reported
in eq. (2) where we compared the effect of spouses income and family income. The results
reveal that the standardized
coefficient
for spouses income in this
equation is also negative and nonsignificant.
In sharp contrast to this,
the standardized
coefficient for family income is positive and significant (p < 0.01). However, a nearly perfect correlation of 0.97 between
own income and family income suggests that own income is the prime
economic variable in determining
retention intention. It may also be
that the incomes of the two service members in dual U.S. Army career
couples are highly correlated
because they tend to be both of similar
rank and therefore
have similar pay.
The finding that spouse income does not contribute
to soldier
retention
intentions is at odds with those of Hogan (1990: 140) who
found that spouse income was positively related to soldier retention
intentions and three times more important than soldiers own income
in determining
retention intentions. This difference may be due to the
fact that Hogan (1990) used imputed values of spouse income based
on spouse demographic
characteristics,
estimated opportunity
cost of
spouses time, and estimated value of frequent
moves; whereas we
used actual spouse income in our equations.
Sample differences
6. Conclusions
The number of dual earner families has been increasing
at an
accelerating
rate in both the U.S. civilian and military sectors. Sixty
percent of all married women soldiers in the U.S. Army were married
to other U.S. Army soldiers. Analyses of the 1985 U.S. Army Dual
Career Survey revealed that career intentions
of dual Army career
couples were jointly determined
as a function of economic, psychological, and sociological variables. Perhaps the most important
application of our findings is in the current downsizing of military services
that seems to be taking place around the world and especially in the
United States. Below we discuss briefly what we think our results
imply for the downsizing of the U.S. Army. Although our data are
drawn only from dual U.S. Army career couples, we believe that the
implications
for downsizing we make from those data have much
wider application.
The most important predictor of retention intentions, perception
of
spouses career intention, indicates that the Army is likely to retain or
lose both soldiers in dual Army career marriages depending
on the
effects of its policies and programs on either partner. For example,
the planned downsizing of the Army could adversely affect the careers
of women soldiers who, even though not specifically
targeted
for
release, would be likely to leave the Army if their husbands left the
Army. Such an inadvertent
loss of career oriented women from the
Army is likely to receive very negative attention from the media and
may further aggravate the problems associated with such organizational downsizing.
The second important
predictor, job satisfaction,
has implications
for Army downsizing as well. The Army must attend to the work
environment
that is created for the survivors of the downsizing effort.
If downsizing survivors experience
greater work loads and work demands because of fewer people to accomplish the same amount of
165
work, the Army is likely to loose the very soldiers it wants and needs
to keep. It is important,
therefore,
for the Army to restructure
the
work environment
with the idea of improving or at least maintaining
the job satisfaction levels of downsizing survivors.
The third most important predictor we found, family size, indicates
that the Army is most likely to retain those soldiers who have the
largest families. The implications for downsizing are that family issues
may actually increase rather than decrease in importance
for those
who remain in the Army.
The fourth most significant predictor, mortgage or rent payments,
indicates that the U.S. Army needs to continue to monitor and adjust
basic allowances for quarters in locations where these housing costs
are unduly high. If, as a result of downsizing, the Army retains older,
more high ranking soldiers with larger families, the Army will need to
closely monitor
housing allowances
to make sure they accurately
reflect local costs.
Military wage, our next most important
predictor,
can play an
important
role in downsizing as well. For example, in a downsizing
environment,
wage increases may be a cost effective way to help retain
those the U.S. Army wants to retain who might otherwise voluntarily
leave. Further, such wage increases might also improve job satisfaction
as well.
Like most of the other predictors of retention intentions, the years
of service predictor has implication for the impending Army downsizing as well. This result shows older higher ranking soldiers are likely
to be retained if downsizing is accomplished
on a strictly volunteer
basis. Further, if downsizing is involuntary, it may be that those with
more service time will need more help in making the transition to
civilian life.
At the very least the results we have presented here have relevance
to the changes in force structures that are likely to be experienced
by
many military services over the course of the next several years. Our
results clearly indicate some of the most important social-psychological and economic variables that will need to be addressed to manage
such structural changes effectively.
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