Divorce and Women in the Military

Divorce and Women in the Military
The headlining article for a recent Air Force Times gave an account of how military members possess decreased divorce numbers as compared to the general populace of the United States by 3% for enlisted members and 6% for officers (Holmes, 2009).   In contrast, research has established that there is a significant divergence involving the genders with active duty military women divorcing at a pace that is more than double (7.8%) to that of male active duty service members (Karney & Crown, 2007). When analyzing the divorce percentages of remarried active duty military personnel, women were notably over-represented signifying that the real number of women who have previously experienced a divorce may possibly be much higher, however, the numbers are masked because of their present marital status (Alder-Baeder, Pittman, & Taylor, 2005). Still more startling is that active duty women have also been experiencing divorce in much greater proportions than men/women in the civilian population (Jelinek, 2008; Lundquist, 2009; Zuber, 2011). The aforementioned are trends that have continued to endure for well over twenty years (Alder-Beader, Pittman, & Taylor, 2005)..
Alder-Beader, Pitman, and Taylor (2005) conducted research that studied military and civilian families. Their research revealed how divorce affects women, their work, and their family units in exceedingly negative and harmful ways. Similar to many who spend considerable effort attempting to balance a multitude of varying roles in life, active duty service women may hold distinctive characteristics, that when joined with the challenges presented in a militaristic lifestyle, lead to elevated divorce numbers (Barnett, 2004).
This paper explores and investigates contemporary literature for possible causal factors in active duty military women’s elevated divorce rate. Suggestions will be set forth for future
research to assist in understanding and reversing these trends...