Keeping the Force: Retaining Military Careerists

Despite major recent recruiting and reenlistment successes, serious concerns are growing that the all-volunteer force will face severe tests in the nineties. This article explores one of the threatening prospects: far stronger civilian sector competition for technically trained military personnel. In particular, the authors first empirically estimate the magnitude of the pull of the civilian economy on the career military; then these estimates are used to gauge the impact of likely future civilian job growth on the chances that military personnel will reenlist or leave.