Gone to war: have deployments increased divorces

Abstract

Abstract Owing to the armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, members of the USmilitary have experienced very high rates of deployment overseas. Because militarypersonnel have little to no control over their deployments, the military setting offersa unique opportunity to study the causal effect of major disruptions on marital dissolution.In this paper, we use longitudinal individual-level administrative data from1999 to 2008 and find that an additional month in deployment increases the divorcehazard of military families, with females being more affected. A standard conceptualframework of marital formation and dissolution predicts a differential effect of thesetypes of shocks depending on the degree to which they are anticipated when a couplegets married. Consistent with this prediction, we find a larger effect for couplesmarried before 9/11, who clearly expected a lower risk of deployment than what theyfaced post 9/11.24 Halama