Study Shows Female GIs Face Higher Divorce Rates

Female Soldiers Statistically More Than Twice As Likely To Divorce

As women become more and more equal within the military, the reality of the inequality in their personal lives becomes more and more apparent.

A study of female service members showed that, of the many women serving in the military, as many as 7.8 percent had gotten a divorce during their career, as opposed to only 3 percent of the male soldiers. This astonishing gap was magnified in the enlisted corps, where the percentage of men remained roughly the same, while the number of female divorcees leapt up to an even 9 percent. In addition to this alarming statistic, the study also demonstrated that military women were more likely to be divorced than their civilian counterparts as well.

Gender Roles May Be To Blame

This gulf may be able to be explained by the societal expectations placed on women, which pressures them to behave in certain ways that male soldiers do not have to deal with, which could be the cause of the divorce gulf.

Traditional military culture seems to favor the old-fashioned idea of the male as the breadwinner and the woman as the homemaker, says one female officer. Because the soldier lives at the whim of the military and can be deployed without warning or moved to another state, it becomes difficult for the spouse to maintain a career of his or her own. In addition, the soldier spends so much time away that the spouse will have to be the primary caretaker of the house and child for much of the marriage.

These traditional roles are easier for male soldiers married to women, who are already somewhat expected to perform child raising duties, than for female soldiers married to men, who may find acting as a homemaker to be difficult in a society that demands independent success on their part. This stress, the report says, is a primary factor in the increased rates of divorce.

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