Veteran Status, Race-Ethnicity, and Marriage Among Fragile Families

• Published in: Journal of marriage and family Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 768 - 786
• Main Authors: Usdansky, Margaret L., London, Andrew S., Wilmoth, Janet M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.08.2009; National Council on Family Relations; Wiley-Blackwell; Wiley
• Subjects: African Americans; Birth; Child care; Childbirth; Culture; Ethnic Groups; Ethnicity; Evidence; Families & family life; Family; Family (Sociological Unit); Family studies; Fathers; Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing; General studies; Hispanic Americans; Hispanics; Human Capital; Low Income; Males; Marital Status; Marriage; Men; military; Military Service; Mothers; Of General Interest; Parenthood; Parents; Race; Racial Discrimination; Regression (Statistics); Regression analysis; Single status; Sociology; Sociology of the family. Age groups; Stability; Surveys; Veterans; Well-being; Whites; United States Of America; Military Service; Ethnicity; Marriage; Couple; Impact analysis; Racial difference
• ISSN: 0022-2445; 1741-3737
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2009.00632.x

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,679) to examine the impact of men's past military service on the likelihood that a couple will marry within 5 years of a nonmarital birth. Logistic regression analyses showed that men's past military service increased marriage odds by 54% for couples with Black fathers even after controlling for potential mediators. But veteran status had no effect on couples with White or Hispanic fathers. As a result, the large Black-White gap in postbirth marriage evident among couples with civilian fathers did not exist among couples with veteran fathers. Our findings bolster other evidence that military service exerts lasting and unique pro-marriage effects on Blacks.