Effects of work-related absences on families: Evidence from the Gulf War

The Gulf War provides an opportunity to estimate the effect of work-related separations on military families. Using data from the 1992 Survey of Offic ers and Enlisted Personnel, the authors estimate the effect of Gulf War dep loyment on divorce rates, spousal employment, and children's disability rat es. Deployment of male soldiers had no effect on marital dissolution, thoug h it did lead soldiers' wives to work less. In contrast, deployment of fema le soldiers led to a large and statistically significant increase in divorc e rates, suggesting deployment of women placed a marked strain on marriages . Deployment of female soldiers did not affect husbands' labor supply. Fina lly, the results show no statistically significant increase in disability r ates among the children of deployed personnel.