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01-05-2007 | Original Article

Veteran Status and Marital Aggression: Does Military Service Make a Difference?

Author: Christopher Bradley

Published in: Journal of Family Violence | Issue 4/2007

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that rates of domestic violence are higher among couples where at least one person is on active duty. What is unclear is whether or not the propensity to engage in domestic violence remains after an individual has left the military and entered into veteran status. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether or not veteran status will increase an individual’s tendency to engage in acts of domestic violence. Through the use of cultural spillover theory, the argument can be made that the effects of military resocialization will persist even after separation from active duty service, and that veteran status will contribute to domestic violence in a marriage. Analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households Wave I dataset allowed for a comparison of the rates of domestic violence among veterans and non-veterans to see if veterans are more likely to engage in domestic violence, net of combat exposure, relationship stressors and other statistical controls. The data reveal that male veterans are in fact less likely to engage in an episode of domestic violence as compared to civilians with no previous military experience; however, once other factors are accounted for, this relationship becomes nonsignificant.

With respect to the possibility that there were any female veterans in the NSFH dataset with some form of combat exposure during their time in uniform, I undertook the necessary steps to see if this was the case. However, once the aforementioned restrictions were placed on the NSFH dataset, none of the remaining female veterans in the sample reported combat exposure.

Ninety-eight percent of all households reported the presence of four or fewer children under the age of 18; as such, it was decided to collapse this variable in the manner described above. In addition, information concerning the number of children in the household was derived from questions contained on the interview schedule for the main respondent.

The score test for the proportional odds assumption was non-significant for the first nested model \( {\left( {\chi ^{2}_{{{\left( 3 \right)}}} = 6.073,\,n.s.} \right)} \) and the second nested model \( {\left( {\chi ^{2}_{{{\left( {12} \right)}}} = 11.159,\,n.s.} \right)} \); however, for the full model the score test was statistically significant \( {\left( {\chi ^{2}_{{{\left( {23} \right)}}} = 39.345,\,p < .05} \right)} \).

The values presented in Table 1 have been rounded to two decimal places; as such, the means of the three categories of the dependent variable sum to more than 100%. Actual values of the dependent variable are as follows: no intimate violence, 87.8%; common couple violence, 9.6%; intensive male violence, 2.7%.

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Title: Veteran Status and Marital Aggression: Does Military Service Make a Difference?
Author: Christopher Bradley
Publication date: 01-05-2007
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers
Published in: Journal of Family Violence / Issue 4/2007
Print ISSN: 0885-7482
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2851
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9072-4

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Veteran Status and Marital Aggression: Does Military Service Make a Difference?

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