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Everyone who serves in the military (and survives the experience) will eventually become a Veteran, and most will face the challenge of finding a civilian job. This paper investigates how contemporary Veterans experience the transition period between military exit and entrance into civilian life and how their own actions before separation shape their post-transition outcomes. We follow 35 servicemembers through the transition process, interviewing them before and several months after they left the military. These interviews reveal the importance of three factors – the conditions triggering their exit, the strength of their military identity, and their own planning (or lack thereof) for the transition to civilian life – in enhancing or detracting from achievement of a stated post-military goals and objective success in moving into work or school. The strength and depth of an individual’s institutional identity shapes how and when servicemembers plan for military exit and how they adjust to unanticipated military exits. Early planning reflects anticipatory socialization for new civilian roles and is associated with better post-military outcomes. But early planning is often hindered by a strong military identity or facilitated by a weak military identity. These findings have important implications for the military and advocates who serve them with the recent military policy changes to transition assistance and the retirement pension system that encourage early planning for post-military life.

Why have African-American private-sector unionization rates surpassed those of white workers for decades, and how has private-sector union decline exacerbated black-white wage inequality? Using data from the Current Population Survey (1973-2007), the authors show that African-Americans join unions for protection against discriminatory treatment in nonunion sectors. A model-predicted wage series also shows that, among women, black-white weekly wage gaps would be between 13% and 30% lower if union representation remained at high levels. The effect of deunionization on racial wage inequality for men is less substantial, but without deunionization, weekly wages for black men would be an estimated $49 higher. The results recast organized labor as an institution vital for its economic inclusion of African-American men and women. This study points to the need to move beyond class-based analyses of union decline to an understanding of the gendered role unions once played in mitigating racial inequality.

In the more than 30 years following the all-volunteer force (AVF), the proportion of women serving in the military has increased from 1.8 percent just before the AVF to 14.2 percent in 2008. The majority of women do not stay in the military for a 20-year or longer career; like men, most women only serve a few years before transitioning to the civilian workforce. Although the fraction of the military who are women has risen, as has the fraction of veterans who are women, little research informs how female veterans of the AVF fare economically after leaving service, or whether military service benefits minority women who serve in such disproportionate numbers. This paper investigates the civilian employment experiences of female veterans of the AVF using two sources of data. First, population-based data from the American Community Survey are used to evaluate the employment experiences of female veterans. Second, data from an audit study of civilian hiring practices provides additional insight into the experiences of women veterans transitioning from military to civilian work. We find little evidence of a veteran labor market disadvantage, either for white or black women. Both groups exhibit strong patterns of labor force attachment. Only white women show slightly lower rates of employment (among those in the labor force), while black women veterans show consistently advantageous employment profiles. These positive employment outcomes among female veterans at least partly derive from employer preference for hiring veterans over equally qualified nonveteran women.

This thesis examines an institution that has been educating, providing leadership training and commissioning the vast majority of U.S. military officers for nearly 100 years, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). This program was formed and shaped over nearly a century through conflict, military necessity, and political maneuvering. Through the incorporation of a historical comparative lens, this program’s mechanistic and temporal conditions are captured to provide lessons learned for other entities searching for an educational identity. One such organization that is struggling to establish a preparatory program and identity is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). When looking at the two case studies side by side, it is easy to see that they do indeed share commonalities in organizational structure, need, and mission. The findings from this thesis offer evidence that the DHS is growing in educational parallel to ROTC, while suffering from many of the same growing pains the Department of Defense did while trying to establish its educational roots. This thesis tracks conditions that shaped the ROTC we know today, while simultaneously highlighting the deficiencies the DHS is facing. It also lays the path for future work that could call for a similar analog as the ROTC for the DHS. http://archive.org/details/whatchistoryteac1094547880 Director, Eagle County Public Safety Communications Center Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.