Young blacks, females saying no to Army

By ROBERT BURNSAssociated Press

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/11079344.htm

Marching Away!

• WASHINGTON - To the daily drumbeat of casualty reports from Iraq, young blacks and women are marching away from offers to join the Army.

• These trends, combined with the negative effects of the Army's image as a last-resort career choice for what one study called the "average Joe," suggests the military's largest service may be entering a prolonged recruiting slump at a time when it is trying to expand its ranks.

• The share of blacks in the Army's recruiting classes has plummeted by about one-third over the past five years. It has continued slipping this year despite more generous enlistment bonuses offered to all prospective recruits and an increase in the number of recruiters.

Decreasing Supplies• More African-Americans identify having to fight for a cause

they don't support as a barrier to military service," concluded an August 2004 study for the Army. It also said attitudes toward the Army among all groups of American youth have grown more negative in recent years.

• "In the past, barriers were about inconvenience or preference for another life choice," the study said. "Now they have switched to something quite different: fear of death or injury."

• Female recruits as a share of total Army enlistments have dropped 13% over the last five years and are in continued decline this year, the Army Recruiting Command says.

• For both groups, concern about being sent to fight in Iraq is the major turnoff, according to a series of unpublicized studies done for the Army over the past year and a half.

Risks Outweighing Rewards• "Risks of military service, and particularly the Army, are

perceived to far outweigh the rewards for the vast majority of youth," said the August 2004 study by GfK Custom Research Inc.

• "Reasons for not considering military service are increasingly based on objections to the Iraq situation and aversion to the military," concluded a study by market research firm Millward Brown.

• Although female soldiers are barred by law from assignments in direct land combat, they nonetheless have found themselves under attack by insurgents in Iraq, and 33 have died, including 21 in hostile action. That is far more than died in either the Vietnam War or the 1991 Gulf War.

• "Over time, females are seeing less benefits to joining the Army and more barriers, particularly combat-related reasons," the Millward Brown study found.

The Economics

• With the all-volunteer army, we have wages and labor force.

wage

labor

DemandSupply

WageBill

w0

L0

• Here, we’re seeing a shift in supply – why?

ReducedSupply

L1

If we institute a draft, who pays?

• Suppose we institute a draft to get an army of size L0, at wage w0.

wage

labor

DemandSupply

WageBill

w0

L0

• We’re paying the same wage bill as before, but now the labor force is paying part of the increased cost.

ReducedSupply

L1

Opportunity CostTo Draftees !