Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reinstitutionalizing Families: Life Course Policy And Marriage In The Military, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Zhun Xu

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

The transition to adulthood has become an increasingly telescoped process for Americans with marital formation occurring increasingly later in the life course. It is therefore striking to find a context like the U.S. military where marriage rates bear an anachronistic resemblance to those of the 1950s era. Using narrative data from life history interviews with military affiliates collected as part of a larger study on the impact of institutions on families, we show that the military has reinstitutionalized military families at the same time that civilian families are becoming deinstitutionalized. Structural conditions of modern military service, such as war deployment …