Do Veterans Face Disparities in Greater Education, Well being, and Housing?

Rajashri Chakrabarti, Dan Garcia, and Maxim Pinkovskiy

Veterans are an understudied group that types an significant element of the fabric of American society and that constitutes a substantial segment of the population. In the very first post of this two-element series, we will investigate how the outcomes of veteran men–in educational attainment, overall health, and housing–differ from these of comparable guys who did not serve in the military. Searching only at guys, for causes described under, we come across that relative to nonveteran guys with a higher college degree and a comparable distribution of demographic and geographic qualities, veterans are 7 percentage points much less probably to have a college degree and are more than 50 % a lot more probably to knowledge a disability. Veterans are also somewhat likelier to rent a property than to personal and, as renters, spend a decrease typical rent, suggesting they knowledge decrease top quality housing or reside in worse neighborhoods.

Service in the military may perhaps bring each financial benefits and financial disadvantages. It represents a commitment of time away from classroom education or civilian employment through the quite years when a lot of people today commence their careers. It also carries with it the threat of injury or extreme mental strain. Nonetheless, military service may perhaps also bring benefits, such as possibilities to find out new technical and interpersonal expertise, access to overall health insurance coverage via the Veterans’ Administration, or subsidies to larger education via the G.I. Bill.

The Information Set

We use the 2019 5-year American Neighborhood Survey (ACS), the final one particular just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, to compute typical outcomes for male veterans and nonveterans aged in between 25 and 69. This reduce of the information has us hunting at the population of veterans who served when enlistment in the armed forces was voluntary, following the finish of the draft in 1971. It is a challenge to construct a comparison group due to the fact veterans differ from nonveterans amongst a lot of dimensions. For instance, veterans are overwhelmingly probably to be male higher college graduates as the military ordinarily demands a higher college degree for service. Veterans are older, with enlistment prices drifting down more than time. They are also a lot more probably to be native-born and white, and a lot more probably to have been born in the South and the Midwest than in the Northeast and the West.

Hence, for a a lot more comparable group for veterans, we take the population of nonveteran male higher college graduates and weight them to match the age, racial, ethnic, immigrant and geographic distributions of veterans. Following a earlier paper, we use as weights the fractions of the male higher college graduate population in every single age, race, origin, and geography category who are veterans. We will refer to this handle group as “comparable nonveterans” for the rest of the series. When our methodology does not get rid of all sources of variations in between veterans and “reweighted” nonveterans (for instance, the veterans may perhaps differ from nonveterans in other elements of their background, or in unobservables such as character or interests, for which there is no information in the ACS), it avoids the most clear sources of noncomparability in between them and permits us to concentrate on the consequences of getting a veteran.

Differing Outcomes in Education, Well being, and Housing

In spite of obtaining access to the advantages of the G.I. Bill, veterans are much less probably than comparable nonveterans to pursue additional education following higher college. We see in the chart under that though 34 % of male higher college graduates who are not veterans receive a bachelor’s degree or larger, only 27 percent of veterans do so. Veterans are also much less probably to finish their education with a bachelor’s degree (17 percent vs. 22 percent) and to go on to receive an sophisticated degree (10 percent vs. 12 percent) than nonveterans. These variations may perhaps be due to the direct effects of military service (like spending a quantity of important years for education in the military), as properly as to unobserved variations in between veterans and nonveterans that are not captured by their age, ethnic, and geographic background.

Veterans Are Much less Most likely to Hold a Bachelor’s or Sophisticated Degree

Sources: American Neighborhood Survey authors’ calculations.

On the overall health front, we see in the panel chart under that though the percentage of veterans that is uninsured is substantially decrease than nonveterans, veterans are more than 50 percent a lot more probably to have a disability, with the odds increasing even larger for some particular disabilities. Thanks to getting eligible for extra types of overall health insurance coverage, only 6 percent of veterans are uninsured, compared with 11 percent of comparable nonveterans (left panel). Nonetheless, regardless of this coverage, the overall health of veterans, at least as measured by the presence of disabilities, is poorer (proper panel). Veterans are also half once again as probably to be disabled, with 19 percent of veterans obtaining a disability as opposed to 12 percent of comparable nonveterans. Veterans are a lot more than twice as probably to have a hearing disability (7 percent vs. 3 percent) and practically twice as probably to have a sensory disability (9 percent vs. 5 percent). Offered that people today serving in the armed forces ordinarily have to pass a health-related overview, disparities in between veterans and nonveterans in their disability price probably emerge either straight from military service or from variations in what veterans and comparable nonveterans do following the veterans leave the military.

Veterans Are Additional Most likely to Have Well being Insurance coverage, However Are Additional Most likely to Be Disabled

Sources: American Neighborhood Survey authors’ calculations.

This evaluation also sheds light on the housing scenario of veterans and nonveterans who either personal or rent. (We do not look at homelessness though veteran homelessness is a important policy concern, there are possible information gaps due to the fact the ACS methodology of acquiring respondents probably undersamples the homeless). In the panel chart under, we see that the renting status of veterans and nonveterans differs tiny (left panel), standing in contrast to the educational and overall health variations identified above. Veterans are somewhat a lot more probably to rent than nonveterans are, but the homeownership price amongst veterans is 70 percent, just one particular percentage point much less than that of comparable nonveterans. Nonetheless, veterans may perhaps be consuming housing of decrease top quality. Veterans who are renters spend about six % much less in rent than comparable nonveteran renters, suggesting that they rent housing with fewer amenities or in worse neighborhoods (proper panel) the very same observation about housing top quality may perhaps apply to veteran home owners.

Veterans Are Slightly Additional Most likely to Rent, and Rent Much less Costly Housing

Sources: American Neighborhood Survey authors’ calculations.

To conclude, we see that, when producing the comparison with nonveterans who are demographically comparable to veterans, veterans have decrease education attainment and a higher prevalence of disabilities than nonveterans. The information also recommend veterans are in somewhat worse housing conditions. In the second post of this series, we will investigate variations in earnings and labor market place outcomes of veterans and nonveterans, and how these variations may perhaps be explained by their disparities in terms of education and overall health. Additional broadly, we will continue to track information relevant to financial outcomes by race/ethnicity, gender, earnings, age, veteran status, and geography in a new month-to-month information solution, Equitable Development Indicators (EGI). Stop by our internet function for charts and short takeaways on disparities in people’s knowledge of inflation, earnings, employment, and customer spending.

Rajashri Chakrabarti is the head of Equitable Development Research in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Study and Statistics Group.  

Dan Garcia is a study analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Study and Statistics Group.

Maxim Pinkovskiy is an financial study advisor in Equitable Development Research in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Study and Statistics Group.

How to cite this post:
Rajashri Chakrabarti, Dan Garcia, and Maxim Pinkovskiy, “Do Veterans Face Disparities in Greater Education, Well being, and Housing?,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, Could 25, 2023, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2023/05/do-veterans-face-disparities-in-larger-education-overall health-and-housing/.

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this post are these of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve Method. Any errors or omissions are the duty of the author(s).