Military Conscription, Sexist Attitudes and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

We provide empirical evidence on the long-term causal impact of military conscription on sexist attitudes and intimate partner violence. To address potential endogeneity, we exploit the conscription draft lottery in Argentina. We combine the draft administrative data with self-reported survey data. We find that conscription causes men to adopt more sexist attitudes in dimensions such as justification of sexism and violence, sexual machismo, negative attitude towards homosexuality, old-fashioned sexism, and hostile sexism. Conscription also causes more engagement in intimate partner violence, as measured by self-reported non-physical abuse and physical violence.

Accepted as Soldiers? Exploring Female Identity Performance and Whistleblowing Dynamics in the Norwegian Army

“…Military service is legally available to women on equal terms as men in several Western democracies (Carreiras, 2006;Doan & Portillo, 2016;King, 2013;Mota et al, 2018;Muhr & Sløk-Andersen, 2017;Reis & Menezes, 2020;Winslow & Dunn, 2002). However, studies have found that the prevailing image of a soldier 1 remains masculine (Alchin et al, 2018;Boldry et al, 2001;Do & Samuels, 2021), and that soldiers can be socialized into sexist attitudes and behavior within the military (Gibbons & Rossi, 2022). Furthermore, integrating women into the military structurally does not automatically change these norms (Carreiras, 2006;Collins-Dogrul & Ulrich, 2018;Ette, 2013;Higate, 2003;King, 2015;Kvarving, 2019;Pendlebury, 2020;Welland, 2010).…”