Exploring the Role of Depressive Symptoms, Service Members, and Spousal Demographic Characteristics on Military Spousal Employment

• Author: Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo,Rachel Neuhausen,Bing Han
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X19848013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Exploring the Role of

Depressive Symptoms,

Service Members, and

Spousal Demographic

Characteristics on

Military Spousal

Employment

Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo

1

, Bing Han

2

and Rachel Neuhausen

3

Abstract

Military spouses, most of whom are women, often contend with a number of factors

that can influence their employment status. Previous studies have examined the role

of service-member and spousal demographic characteristics on wives’ employment.

However, little is known about the role spousal mental health has on employment

while controlling for demographic characteristics. Using repeated-measures logistic

regressions, this longitudinal study explored associations between spousal mental

health and employment while controlling for service-member and spousal charac-

teristics in a sample of 1,164 women. Fewer depressive symptoms were significantly

associated with employment (p< .05). Spouses of enlisted personnel, women who

were older, racial/ethnic minorities, homeowners, or had city stability, had higher

1

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Applied Health Sciences, Department of

Kinesiology and Community Health, Champaign, IL, USA

2

RAND Corp, Santa Monica, CA, USA

3

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gies College of Business, Champaign, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, College of Applied Health

Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1820, 1206 S. Fourth Street, Champaign, IL 61820,

USA.

Email: laracini@illinois.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2020, Vol. 46(3) 397-423

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X19848013

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odds of employment (p< .05). Military spouses of active duty service members and

those less educated had lower odds of employment (p< .05). Depressive symptoms

and demographic characteristics should guide employment opportunity programs

for military spouses.

Keywords

military, service member, spouse, employment, depressive symptoms

Since 2011, when many U.S. service members were withdrawn from Iraq and

Afghanistan, much of the attention has been on veterans and their families, with

less attention to active duty and National Guard/Reserve personnel and their

spouses. In 2015, there were an estimated 1.3 million active duty service members

across all military branches and an equal number of National Guard and Reservists

(Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, 2015). The majority of service

members are male and, based on available data, more than half (55.3%) of hetero-

sexual males are married (Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense,

2015). Female military spouses—women married to heterosexual male service

members—make up the vast majority of spouses affiliated with active duty military

personnel. Military spouses are an important group to study because they must

contend with a number of unique factors that are different from or more complex

than civilian spouses and can influence their personal and professional well-being,

such as fewer work hours and lower wages compared to civilian counterparts (Mea-

dows, Griffin, Karney, & Pollak, 2016). While military spousal employment has

been an area of interest since the early 1980s because of the implications it can have

on service-member retention (Grossman, 1981; Schwartz, Bell, Gade, & Simutis,

1990), much of the prior research has focused on specific service-member and

spousal characteristics (Schwartz, Wood, & Griffith, 1991), and little attention has

been given to spousal mental health (Ickovics & Martin, 1987). This study aims to

address this gap in the literature by exploring the role of spousal mental health on

employment while controlling for service-member and spousal characteristics.

Exploratory Framework

This study builds on previous investigations that relied on a framework that service-

member wives’ engagement in the labor market was based on a decision balance

between income and leisure, and where allocation of time was based on the costs

associated with working outside the home (e.g., it is more expensive to work than

stay-at-home; Becker, 1965; Grossman, 1981; Lim & Schulker, 2010; Mincer, 1962;

Schwartz et al., 1990, 1991). While more recent studies have examined military

398 Armed Forces & Society 46(3)