Early-Career Aged Female Veterans More Likely To Be Employed, Married And Have Kids Than Their Non-veteran Counterparts

A higher percentage of female veterans were also enrolled in college compared with female non-veterans, across all age groups.

A new report on the characteristics of female veterans released today by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that early-career aged female veterans (18 to 34 years old) were more likely to be employed, married and have a child in their home than early-career aged female non-veterans.

This report, which uses 2015 American Community Survey data, takes three different age snapshots, early-career (ages 18 to 34), mid-career (ages 35 to 44) and late-career (ages 45 to 64), as career proxies to determine if female veterans are different from non-veterans as they transition from military to civilian life throughout their working ages.

“This report shows some key differences between female veterans and non-veterans in the various stages of their lives,” said Daphne Lofquist, a demographer in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division. “The differences are most prominent for those in the early-career age group. As they age, female veterans and non-veterans become more similar.”

A few notable differences for early-career veteran and non-veteran women:

• Early-career aged veteran women had higher rates of being married (45.1 percent) than non-veteran women in the same age group (29.6 percent).
• Early-career veteran women had a higher percentage of having a child under 18 years old living in the household (49.1 percent compared to 33.4 percent of non-veteran women).
• The median age of early-career veteran women was older than their non-veteran counterparts (30 years compared with 26 years).
• Employed early-career veteran women had higher rates of working full-time, year-round, 68.7 percent, compared to 54.9 percent for their counterparts.
• Early-career veteran women had higher rates of working in the government, 37.1 percent, compared to 11.5 of their counterparts.

These differences between veterans and non-veterans were generally higher for early-career women than for their mid- and late-career age counterparts.

Education also differed between female veterans and non-veterans. Early-career veterans were less likely than early-career non-veterans to have completed a college degree.

However, the reverse is true of mid- and late-career women, as a higher percentage of veterans had a completed a bachelor’s degree or higher than non-veterans in these age groups. A higher percentage of female veterans were also enrolled in college compared with female non-veterans, across all age groups.

Overall, employed female veterans were more likely to work full time, year-round (75.1 percent versus 64.6 percent); work in the government (34.8 percent versus 16.0 percent); and, for those employed full-time, year-round, have higher median earnings ($45,509 versus $39,927) than female non-veterans.