George W. Thomas

General Intellectual Achievement, Enlistment Intentions, and Racial Representativeness in the U.S. Military

Debates about the racial representativeness of the U.S. military often fail to consider whether the racial composition of those who want to join the military reflects that of the general population. Using a sample of young men from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article examines the effects of four different specifications of the independent variables race, poverty status, high school enrollment, age, and test score on an individuals enlistment intentions. The coefficient estimates were maximum likelihood estimates of a logistic regression model with an ordinal dependent variable. The results suggest that enlistment intentions depend heavily on intellectual achievement and poverty as well as race, and that models ignoring this may attribute false importance to the effects of race on intentions to enlist.

Enlistment Motivations of Army Reservists: Money, Self-Improvement, or Patriotism?

Although a number of researchers have examined active-force enlistment at both the aggregate and individual levels, relatively little work has been done on reserve enlistment motivations at the individual level. This study uses a log-linear model to profile the self-reported motivations of male U.S. Army Reserve recruits as a function of age, educational attainment, mental category, and plans to transfer to the active Army. The empirical results suggest that there are several differently motivated subgroups of Army Reserve recruits and that the Army Reserve may play a significant role in active-Army recruiting.

Gender differences in turnover among U.S. army reservists

Gender differences in the retention of enlisted Army Reserve members are investigated using turnover models for part‐time employment. The turnover models incorporate external market, personal, and work‐related factors. Separate logistic regressions for men and women reveal that the retention of male reservists is explained by a wide range of factors similar to the determinants for full‐time job turnover. In contrast, only a few factors (most notably retirement benefits) exert a significant influence on womens retention in this part‐time job. After accounting for race, gender differences remain important in explaining retention in the reserves.