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| Who Serves in the U.S. Military? Demographics of Enlisted & Officers |
| 2008-09-03 |
| The Heritage Foundation just issued a report on the demographics of the current volunteer military. It seems volunteers, both officers and enlisted, come disproportionately from the educated, from middle and upper-middle income families, and from the South and West. Y'all aren't hopeless dead-enders who could do nothing better with your lives. I know y'all knew that, but it's nice to have it statistically confirmed. Summary given below, lots of graphs and footnotes for the interested. :-) Who serves in the active-duty ranks of the U.S. all-volunteer military? Conventional wisdom holds that military service disproportionately attracts minorities and men and women from disadvanÂtaged backgrounds. Many believe that troops enlist because they have few options, not because they want to serve their country. Others believe that the war in Iraq has forced the military to lower its recruiting standards. Based on an understanding of the limitations of any objective definition of quality, this report comÂpares military volunteers to the civilian population on four demographic characteristics: household income, education level, racial and ethnic backÂground, and regional origin. This report finds that: 1. U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous HerÂitage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonÂstrates that the same is true of the officer corps. 2. Members of the all-volunteer military are sigÂnificantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 perÂcent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) proÂgram, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years. 3. American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted perÂsonnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelorÂ’s degree. 4. Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of SouthÂern military tradition. The facts do not support the belief that many American soldiers volunteer because society offers them few other opportunities. The average enlisted person or officer could have had lucrative career opportunities in the private sector. Those who argue that American soldiers risk their lives because they have no other opportunities belittle the personal sacrifices of those who serve out of love for their country. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 So much for Kerry and the donks talking points. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-09-03 17:25 |
| #1 THank you TW. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2008-09-03 15:08 |