Work-Family Conflict among Military Personnel

Abstract: Although researchers in civilian society have devoted a great deal of attention to often competing demands of work and family roles, research has only recently started to consider such issues in the context of the U.S. military. For a soldier, military and family institutions are uniquely interrelated, described by some as "total" (Gofrman, 1961, as cited in Bowen, 1989, p. 2) and "greedy" (Lewis Coser, 1974, as cited by Mady Segal, 1988, p. 79). For most soldiers, "[s]ervice...involves more than just an occupational choice; it is the selection of a lifestyle that permeates almost every aspect of a person's life" (Bowen, 1989, p. 1). This chapter documents the development of military family research. In order to review the literature on work-family research relevant to those interested in this phenomenon among those in the military, we first consider definitions and models that have come largely from the civilian literature on work-family conflict. Despite the obvious differences between military and civilian organizations, military researchers have drawn heavily from this literature to formulate military-specific models and develop research hypotheses. The chapter then shifts to a description of the framework researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) have used to study work-family issues among military personnel. The chapter then includes a description of empirical work-family research that is relevant to the military. As readers will notice, much of the research reviewed was not conducted with military samples. However, at the end of each subsection we explain the relevance of findings to military personnel. The chapter concludes with a general summary and description of implications of this research for improving the quality of life for military personnel.