The Economic Returns to Military Service: Race-Ethnic Differences.

This article focuses on the in-service earnings advantages of military services, considering race-ethnic differences. The U.S. Department of Defense, as the nation's largest employer of American youth, has a significant impact on the youth labor market in general and on minority youth in particular. As large numbers of U.S. forces were recently deployed to a battle area of Saudi Arabia, questions arose once again as to the "fairness" of having minorities serve in disproportionate numbers in the armed forces. The issues surrounding minority participation in the military have been much discussed since the inception of all-volunteer force in 1973. This article, in addition to assessing economic returns, specially examines reasons that minority youth are attracted to military service. Moreover, it assess the impact of service on youth in terms of their earning experience. It has been well documented that blacks and Hispanics historically have had less opportunity in the civilian labor market than their comparably educated and experienced non-Hispanic white counterparts.