The Impact of Military Work Experience on Later Hiring Chances in the Civilian Labour Market. Evidence from a Field Experiment

Abstract

This study directly assesses the impact of military work experience compared with civilian work experience in similar jobs on the subsequent chances of being hired in the civilian labour market. It does so through a field experiment in the Belgian labour market. A statistical examination of our experimental dataset shows that in general we cannot reject that employers are indifferent to whether job candidates gained their experience in a civilian or a military environment. JEL C93 J24 J45 J71Keywords Field experiments; hiring discrimination; transitions in the labour market AuthorsStijn Baert, Department of Social Economics, Ghent University, Tweekerkenstraat 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium, Stijn.Baert@UGent.be Pieter Balcaen, Department of Social Economics, Ghent University, Belgium Citation Stijn Baert and Pieter Balcaen (2013). The Impact of Military Work Experience on Later Hiring Chances in the Civilian Labour Market. Evidence from a Field Experiment. Economics: The Open-Access, OpenAssessment E-Journal, Vol. 7, 2013-37. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2013 www.economics-ejournal.org 1 IntroductionFor decades, researchers have been studying the relationship between military experience and (later) civilian labour market outcomes. From a theoretical point of view, following human capital theory both general and specific training received in the military environment (with, e.g. a more important focus on physical shape and self-control), as opposed to that received in the civilian environment, may affect productivity (Bryant and Wilhite, 1990;Hartley and Sandler, 1995). In addition, military experience may also influence one's social capital due to the particular military network they build (Lin, 1999;Portes, 1998). 1 Furthermore, military experience may be used as a screening device for productivity determining physical and psychological traits (De Tray, 1982;Teachman and Tedrow, 2007). Finally, following Becker's (1957) theory on the economics of discrimination, there also exists a taste-based motivation for unequal treatment of workers with a military employment background on the one hand and a civilian one on the other. 2 This last factor may be related to the armed forces' image in the region (both in general and specific as an employer). The empirical literature on the relationship between military experience and civilian labour market outcomes has focused on the effect of three types of military experience on later civilian wage outcomes: war experience, conscription and regular military work experience. First, the empirical evidence on the effect of fighting in a war on later wage levels is mixed, with findings varying according to the "popularity" of the war under investigation and the socio-economic status of the veteran (Angrist, 1990;Angrist and Krueger, 1994;Berger and Hirsch, 1983;Rosen and Taubman, 1982). Second, studies dedicated to the causal identification of the impact of conscription 3 find a neutral or negative effect of this military service on later wage outcomes if it...

Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005

“…Including an attractive facial picture (compared to a less attractive one) with one's resume has a beneficial effect. Finally, Table 1 lists little evidence for non-negative effects of military service and higher wealth (Baert & Balcaen, 2013;Kleykamp, 2009), a negative effect of trade union membership (Baert & Omey, 2015), and zero effects for marital status (Arceo-Gomez & Campos-Vazques, 2014) and political affiliation (Baert et al, 2014).…”

Field Experimental Evidence on Gender Discrimination in Hiring: Biased as Heckman and Siegelman Predicted?

“…Besides its application in studies identifying gender discrimination in hiring, economists have used the correspondence testing framework to test for unequal treatment in the labour market on grounds such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, former unemployment and former employment in the army (see, e.g., Baert 2014; Baert and Balcaen 2013;Baert et al 2015;Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004;Drydakis 2009;Eriksson and Rooth 2014;Kroft et al 2013).…”

Labour market discrimination against former juvenile delinquents: evidence from a field experiment

“…12 As reviewed by Baert and Balcaen (2013), former contributions to the empirical literature on hiring discrimination reported lower rates of unequal treatment in large companies. In our case, however, the estimated coefficient for the firm size proxy has the expected (negative) sign, but is not significant.…”