Why Americans Consider Joining the Military

Abstract

Why do Americans consider joining the military? Americans’s values, their perceptions of military benefits, their confidence in meeting military entrance requirements, and their family connections to the military may affect their likelihood of considering military service. This article tests these hypotheses with the results from a novel survey fielded to a large nationally representative sample of American nonveteran adults within military age guidelines. The results suggest that, for the average American 18- to 41-year-old nonveteran, four factors are associated with an increased likelihood of having considered military service: having a first-order family connection to the military, having favorable views of military salary or nonsalary benefits, being confident about eligibility for military service, and viewing patriotism as an important value.

Keywords

civil–military relations political science recruitment propensity to serve professionalism partisanship polarization

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