Advancing the Careers of Military Spouses: An Assessment of Education and Employment Goals and Barriers Facing Military Spouses Eligible for MyCAA

Abstract

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Today's Soldier: Assessing the Needs of Soldiers and Their Families

“…For married soldiers, Work/Life Balance challenges may also include intrusions into spouses' educational opportunities and careers, which can be disrupted by such features of military life as frequent permanent change of station (PCS) moves, international assignments, deployments and other geographic separations, and long work hours, or need to care for wounded spouses (Segal, 1986;Sticha et al, 1999;Drummet, Coleman, and Cable, 2003;Booth, Segal, and Bell, 2007;Castaneda and Harrell, 2008;Cooney, De Angelis, and Segal, 2011;DMDC, 2013;Blue Star Families, 2014;Ramchand et al, 2014;Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015; Defense Manpower Data Center and U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy, 2015).…”

The Impact of a Spouse Incentive on Employee Retention: Evidence from a Military Spouse Scholarship

“…While we do not have an experimental framework, we argue that our results can be causal given our implementation of a propensity score matching framework in which we can control for service members' career profiles. Furthermore, we argue that unobservable information plays a minimal role, given that a previous analysis of survey data found that spouses who had used MyCAA in the previous 12 months (spanning 2011 to 2012) were no more likely to support the service member continuing than comparable past year nonusers (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015), further indicating that any impact of MyCAA on spousal support for service member continuation is not immediately realized but may develop later, during or after the use of MyCAA Scholarship funds. Furthermore, the measured impact is positive even among the population of households whose service members continue in active service beyond the end of the three-year scholarship window, suggesting service members did not remain in the service to allow the spouse to complete his or her program.…”

“…While we do not directly observe the education levels of eligible individuals, MyCAA provides funding only for associate's degrees or occupational certificates and licenses, meaning that many users are likely to have less than a bachelor's degree. Indeed, in the 2012 Active Duty Spouse Survey (ADSS), 84 percent of spouses who had used MyCAA in the past year held less than a bachelor's degree (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015). Along those lines, we show that the impact on retention was larger when MyCAA was used for an associate's degree, as compared with an occupational certificate.…”

“…Correspondingly, MyCAA nonusers could disproportionately be spouses who did not feel they needed education and training in a portable career field, because they did not expect their service members to remain in the military long term. However, analyses of weighted 2012 ADSS responses found that spouses who had used MyCAA in the previous 12 months (spanning 2011 to 2012) were no more likely to support the service member continuing than comparable past-year nonusers who were also married to service members whose rank and active-duty status met the MyCAA eligibility criteria (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015). That study used multivariate logistic regression models to control for many characteristics that could otherwise potentially explain differences between recent users and nonusers, including spouse characteristics (age, gender, race-ethnicity, education/vocational certificate, own monthly income, indicators of health and financial well-being) service member characteristics (service, paygrade group, nights in the past 36 months spent away from home) family characteristics (years married, children, enrolled in Exceptional Family Member Program because of a family member with special needs, and housing status [on base, military off base, civilian]) (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015).…”

“…However, analyses of weighted 2012 ADSS responses found that spouses who had used MyCAA in the previous 12 months (spanning 2011 to 2012) were no more likely to support the service member continuing than comparable past-year nonusers who were also married to service members whose rank and active-duty status met the MyCAA eligibility criteria (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015). That study used multivariate logistic regression models to control for many characteristics that could otherwise potentially explain differences between recent users and nonusers, including spouse characteristics (age, gender, race-ethnicity, education/vocational certificate, own monthly income, indicators of health and financial well-being) service member characteristics (service, paygrade group, nights in the past 36 months spent away from home) family characteristics (years married, children, enrolled in Exceptional Family Member Program because of a family member with special needs, and housing status [on base, military off base, civilian]) (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015). In both the model that included all MyCAA rank-eligible spouses and the one that included only past year users and nonusers who were aware of MyCAA, there were no statistically significant differences between users and nonusers on satisfaction with the military or favoring their service member staying on active duty (Friedman, Miller, and Evans, 2015, p. 63).…”