Adopting M. Segal’s framework, we focused on examining four military lifestyle demands—(1) risk of service member injury or death, (2) frequent relocations, (3) periodic separations, and (4) foreign residence—and their relationships to psychological and physical well-being, satisfaction with the Army, and marital satisfaction. Questionnaire results from 346 spouses living overseas indicated that the impact of separations was negatively related to all four outcomes, while foreign residence was negatively related to physical and psychological well-being, fear for soldier safety was negatively related to physical well-being, and the impact of moving was negatively related to satisfaction with the Army. The results further indicated that perceptions of moving and separations were more important in determining outcomes than were the actual number of moves or separations.
James T. Bond, Ellen Galinsky, and Jennifer E. Swanberg, The 1997 National Study of the Changing Workplace (New York: Families and Work Institute, 1998).
2.
Military Families Resource Center, “Military Families in the Millennium,” http://www.mfrcdodqol.org/pdffiles/Milfam-millenium-fs.pdf (accessed February 2, 2005).
3.
Charles Moskos, “Institutional/Occupational Trends in the Armed Forces: An Update,”Armed Forces & Society12 (1986): 377-382.
4.
and Mady Segal and Jesse J. Harris, “What We Know about Army Families” (U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Special Report 21, Alexandria, VA, 1993).
5.
Mady W. Segal, “The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions,”Armed Forces & Society13 (1986): 9-38.
6.
Gerald M. Croan, Carole T. Levine, and David A. Blankinship, “Family Adjustment to Relocation” (U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Technical Report 968, Alexandria, VA, 1992).
7.
Segal, “The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions.”
8.
Croan, Levine, and Blankinship, “Family Adjustment to Relocation”; Dennis K. Orthner, Martha M. Giddings, and William H. Quinn, “Youth in Transition: A Study of Adolescents from Air Force and Civilian Families” (Center for Work and Family Issues Report, University of Georgia, 1986); and George Vernez and Gail L. Zellman, “Families and Mission: A Review of the Effects of Family Factors on Army Attrition, Retention, and Readiness” (United States Army Report No. N-2624-A, Washington, DC, 1987).
9.
Dennis K. Orthner, “Deployment and Separation Adjustment among Army Civilian Spouses,” (Survey of Army Families [SAF IV] Survey Report), http://www.armymwr.com/corporate/operations/planning/surveys.asp (accessed September 13, 2005).
10.
and Lisa B. Finkel, Michelle L. Kelley, and Jayne Ashby, “Geographic Mobility, Family, and Maternal Variables as Related to the Psychosocial Adjustment of Military Children,”Military Medicine168, no. 12 (2003): 1019-1024.
11.
W. M. Warner, “The Air Force Wife—Her Perspective” (Unpublished manuscript, Maxwell Air Force Base, Air and Command Staff College, 1983).
12.
and Orthner, “Deployment and Separation Adjustment among Army Civilian Spouses.”
13.
and Sara Norell and Anne P. Copeland, “US-UK Moves: Cross Cultural Adjustment in American and British Expatriate Accompanying Spouses,”http://www.interchangeinstitute.org/html/research.htm (accessed November 16, 2003).
14.
and Ingrid Anderzen and Bengt B. Arnetz, “Psychophysiological Reactions to International Adjustment: Results from a Controlled Longitudinal Study,”Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics68 (1999): 67-75.
15.
and P. P. Makowsky, A. S. Cook, P. S. Berger, and J. Powell, “Women’s Perceived Stress and Well-Being Following Voluntary and Involuntary Relocation,”Lifestyles: Family and Economic Issues9, no. 2 (1988): 111-122.
16.
and Deborah A. Mohr, Robert L. Holzbach, and Robert F. Morrison, “Surface Warfare Junior Officer Retention: Spouse’s Influence on Career Decisions” (USN-Naval Personnel Research and Development Command Technical Report NPRDC 81-17, San Diego, CA, 1981).
17.
Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, “2003 Demographics: Profile of the Military Community,” http://www.mfrc-dodqol.org/stat.cfm (accessed January 13, 2005).
18.
Ozkaptan, Sanders, and Holz, “A Profile of Army Families in USAREUR.”
19.
and Kathryn R. Puskar, “International Relocation: Women’s Coping Methods,”Health Care for Women International11 (1990): 263-276.
20.
David E. Rohall, Mady W. Segal, and David R. Segal, “Examining the Importance of Organizational Supports on Family Adjustment to Army Life in a Period of Increasing Separation,”Journal of Political and Military Sociology27 (1999): 49-65.
21.
and Joanne C. Marshall-Mies, “Civilian Spouses of Soldiers: Comparison of the Results for Male and Female Spouses” (U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Technical Report 2001-04, Alexandria, VA, 2001).
22.
and Cheryl E. McRae-Bergeron, Larry May, Robert W.Foulks, Kathy Sisk, Pat Chamings, and Patricia A. Clark, “A Medical Readiness Model of Health Assessment or Well-Being in First Increment Air Combat Command Medical Personnel,”Military Medicine164 (1999): 379-388.
23.
and Jeurgen K. Raschman, John C. Patterson, and Gary L. Schofield, “A Retrospective Study of Marital Discord in Pilots: The USAFSAM” (School of Aerospace Medicine Technical Report USAFSAM-JA-90-5, Brooks Air Force Base, TX, 1989).
24.
and Stacy J. Rogers and Dee C. May, “Spillover between Marital Quality and Job Satisfaction: Long-term Patterns and Gender Differences,”Journal of Marriage & Family65, no. 2 (2003): 482-495.
25.
and Schumm, Bell, and Gade, “Effects of a Military Overseas Peacekeeping Deployment.”
26.
Walter R. Schumm, D. Bruce Bell, and Benjamin Knott, “Predicting the Extent and Stressfulness of Problem Rumors at Home among Army Wives of Soldiers Deployed Overseas on a Humanitarian Mission,”Psychological Reports89, no. 1 (2001): 123-134.
27.
Carroll E. Izard, The Psychology of Emotions (New York: Plenum, 1991).
28.
Ibid.
29.
Leora N. Rosen and Doris B. Durand, “The Family Factor and Retention among Married Soldiers Deployed in Operation Desert Storm,”Military Psychology7 (1995): 221-234.
30.
and A. A. Cohen and J. Dotan, “Communication in the Family as a Function of Stress during War and Peace,”Journal of Marriage and the Family38 (1976): 141-148.
31.
Adler, Bartone, and Vaitkus, “Family Stress and Adaptation during a U.S. Army Europe Peacekeeping Deployment”; Irene van der Kloet and Rene Moelker, “Overcoming Stressful Experiences: Military Families in the Frontline” (Paper presented at the Thirty-eighth IAMPS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2002); and Bell and Schumm, “Family Adaptation to Deployments.”
32.
Segal, “The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions.”
33.
Rosen, Teitelbaum, and Westhuis, “Stressors, Stress Mediators, and Emotional Well-Being.”
34.
While we did not specifically ask spouses what their soldiers’ military occupational specialties were, the units represented were diverse and included soldiers who were in Combat Arms, Combat Support and Combat Service Support positions.
35.
The response rate may be slightly higher since, in some cases, we had to rely on the units to distribute the questionnaires, and it is possible that not all were distributed. However, we are making the assumption that all surveys provided to the units were given to the spouses.
36.
Leonard R. Derogatis, The Brief Symptom Inventory 18 (BSI 18): Administration, Scoring and Procedures Manual (Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems, 2000).
37.
Robert Norton, “Measuring Marital Quality: A Critical Look at the Dependent Variable,”Journal of Marriage and the Family45, no. 1 (1983): 141-151.
38.
and Barbara G. Tabachnick and Linda S. Fidell, Using Multivariate Statistics (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001).
39.
Jim C. Nunnally and Ira H. Bernstein, Psychometric theory, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994).
40.
As can be seen in Table 2, the Pearson’s correlations for number of separations did not yield significant results, yet for the outcomes in Tables 5 to 7, the betas for number of separations were significant. The betas in the regression analysis reflect the relationships between the independent and the dependent variables while controlling for all of the other predictor variables in the model, whereas with the Pearson correlations, the other independent variables are not controlled for, thus resulting in different outcomes.
41.
We reran the analyses replacing the continuous rank variable with years of service, and the findings were similar. In addition, we reran the analyses using enlisted and officer as dichotomous rank variables and still had similar findings.
42.
δR2= Change R2.
43.
Segal, “The Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions.”
44.
David R. Segal, Mady W. Segal, and Dana P. Eyre, “The Social Construction of Peacekeeping in America,” in The Sociology of the Military, ed. Giuseppe Caforio (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998).
45.
and Morris Peterson, “Survey of Army Families IV: Final Quick Summary, Spring 2001” (SAF IV Survey Report), http://www.armymwr.com/corporate/operations/planning/surveys.asp (accessed September 13, 2005).
