The Draft in America, 1915-1973

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Despite relying on military drafts throughout its history, the United States shifted slowly away from the draft in the 1970s; for all practical purposes, the draft ended in 1973 and since that period the U.S. has recruited military personnel and maintained an All Volunteer Force (AVF).11Although draft numbers were assigned through 1975 covering men born through 1956, no men were drafted into service after 1973. However, the Selective Service has continually required that all men register upon turning 18; this pool exists should a draft become necessary. See Rostker (2006) for a discussion of the transition and a complete history of the All Volunteer Force in the United States. The current AVF model involves selection into the military—some who apply to enlist are deemed ineligible due to low test scores, poor health, or other issues; at the same time, military service is relatively rare among the most advantaged members of society. Additionally, military service today is much more common among those whose parents served in the military (Warrior Class, 2017).
Prior to the advent of the AVF, a draft was enacted surrounding each of the major conflicts during the period 1915-1975 (in fact, the draft was also used in earlier periods; see Sohani and Vafa, 2010 as well as Barry, 2013 for more information).
At first glance, the draft appears to avoid many selection issues, creating a situation in which enlistees could be viewed as a random sample of the population of young males. While there is an element of randomness in the draft, but during each era some young men were ineligible to be drafted. 22For a discussion of the issues surrounding selection into the military during the Vietnam era, see Angrist (1990). Date of birth is closely linked with probability of service, but those who were drafted were also screened on measures related to health and cognitive function. Methodologically, this means that some of our results may lack external validity, but by comparing veterans to other veterans we avoid some issues of potential endogeneity. However, it is worth noting that in different eras, different proportions of young men served in the military. Below, we briefly describe the draft during each major conflict relevant to our data.
In World War II, about 16 million men served in the military; the overall population of the US at the time was about 133 million. The WWII military experienced extremely rapid growth at the advent of the war, growing twenty-fold in 3 years. During this period, the majority of young men served in the military. At the end of the war, one might expect that all service members would have exited at around the same time (their commitment was for the length of the war plus 6 months). In fact, there is some variation in timing of exit. While there was significant public pressure to release service members quickly, it was not possible to process all service members simultaneously; demobilization began in May 1945 and continued through 1946. During this period, the size of the military reduced by about 87 percent. Today, only about 10 percent of WWII veterans are living (va.gov); thus, this group will likely not make up most of our sample, but because of the sheer size of the military they still form a relatively large sub-sample.
During the Korea conflict, some 6 million served; at least 1.5 million were drafted and many of the others were draft-induced volunteers. Terms of service were generally 24 months, allowing substantial variation of economic conditions at exit. About 2.3 million Korea-era veterans are alive today.
The Vietnam conflict was lengthy in nature. During that era, some 8.7 million service members served; about 3.4 million were deployed to Southeast Asia. Draftees generally served in the Army for 24 months; volunteers chose their branch and generally served for 3 or 4 years. Large numbers of men were drafted in 1970, 1971, and 1972. Thus, there is considerable variation in the timing of exit among those who were drafted (and among draft-induced volunteers). At the end of the conflict, the size of the military decreased dramatically. Some 7.4 million veterans from this era are alive; these veterans make up a large proportion of today’s veteran population although some of them are too young to be included in our sample (see next section).
Figure 1 traces out the size of the US (active component) military endstrength, as well as the population of young men (aged 19-22) and the ratio of young men to the endstrength. This figure demonstrated the overall population growth during the time period, as well as the dramatic changes in the size of the endstrength between periods of conflict and peaceful periods. The ratio of young men to the endstrength was highest during the period prior to WWII. Despite the relatively small population of the country during this period, the standing military was very small (the endstrength in 1930 was about 250,000 compared to about 12 million at the peak of WWII and roughly 1.3 million in recent years).33The endstrength in Figure 1 includes only those serving in the Active Components; the sizes of the Reserve Components also have fluctuated substantially over time although these components generally were less central to warfighting efforts in the first half of the 20th century. During WWII, the endstrength was substantially larger than the population of young men (many who served were well outside the 19-22-year-old age range); during other periods included in Figure 1, the ratio of young men to endstrength generally exceeded 1. Immediately following WWII, the services drew down to the point that endstrength dropped below 2 million. At this point, the population of young men was about 3 times the size of the endstrength. In many of the years encompassing the Korean and Vietnam wars, the endstrength remained above 2 million; the size of the force increased during each period of conflict and then returned to something closer to 2 million. The size of the force fell around the advent of the AVF, and the general trend has been downward since 1980 while the overall size of the US population has increased. Today, the ratio of endstrength to young men is about 0.15, a ratio not seen since prior to WWII.44Given the increasing military role filled by women, the ratio of the total youth population to the endstrength may be the more relevant metric; today, that ratio is approximately 14 to 1. By these measures, the probability of serving in the military today is markedly lower than it was during the eras included in Figure 1. In summary, Figure 1 implies that during the periods of conflict relevant to our analyses, a relatively high proportion of men joined the armed forces; during WWII, military service was in fact the norm. To help control for the differences in the veteran population during different eras, we also include the variable that measures the ratio of endstrength to the young male population in our models.55We calculate this ratio by comparing the size of the active component endstrength to the number of men aged 19-22 in the US.
Figure : Young Men in the United States and the US Military Endstrength
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NOTES: Authors’ tabulations based on Census data, Population Representation in the Military Services , various years; Selected Manpower Statistics , various years; Census data, various years.
The ratio of endstrength to population effectively describes the proportion of young men who will serve in the military. This ratio is driven by world events, rather than by individual decisions. Thus, it offers a way to correct for the potential endogeneity of veteran status. We estimate a simple logistic model that explains veteran status among all males in our dataset as a function of this ratio, the unemployment rate at age 19, and race/ethnicity. The ratio of endstrength to the population of young males has a statistically signifncat and substantive effect on the probability of being a veteran and the unemployment rate at age 19 has a small positive effect on the probability of being a veteran (see Table A.1, Appendix A).66Our model also includes race/ethnicity; model results appear in Table A.1, Appendix A. Next, we discuss our general methodology in more detail.
To summarize the key aspect of our methodology, there was certainly some sample selection in terms of who served or did not serve in the military during the major conflicts of the 20th century. However, our strategy compares experiences of veterans who exited the military during relatively prosperous time with the experiences of those who exited during less prosperous times. Therefore, as long as the sample selection out of the military was minimal and sample selection into the military was somewhat consistent over the eras included in our data, our strategy will enable us to identify the effects of economic conditions on a specific population, veterans. Figure 1 suggests that during WWII, a very large proportion of young men likely served in the military; during the eras following WWII through Vietnam a relatively constant proportion of the population appears to have served in the military (although there was a sharp build-up at the beginning of each conflict and a drawdown at the end). This suggests that while the population of WWII veterans may differ from those of later eras, the veterans of the Korean and VietNam eras may be comparable on many measures (as noted above, these veterans should make up most of our sample).77Future specification test: exclude WWII veterans from models. Finally, during each major conflict, the size of the military grew rapidly; the military tended to return rapidly to its pre-conflict size (or to downsize further) after each conflict. While draftees could remain in the military after the end of the conflict, the rapid downsizing meant that most did not remain, and that former draftees/volunteers generally had few options to extend service (or time their exits). Nonetheless, we utilize a 2SLS strategy to correct for this potential endogeneity.