Does Enlistment Propensity Predict Accession? High School Seniors' Plans and Subsequent Behavior

Abstract

This article examines how high school seniors' plans or "propensity" to serve in the armed forces relate to their actual enlistment. Longitudinal data were used from more than M 33.000 participants in the Monitoring the Future Project's nationally representative samples from the high school classes of 1976-1991; however, primary attention was focused on the more recent classes (1984-1991). Men's expectations at the end of high school predicted their entrance into military service just about as accurately as they predicted entrance into college. Among those men who "definitely" expected to enlist, fully 70 percent did so within five or six years; however, among, those who "probably" expected to enlist, only 29 percent did so; and among all other men, under 10 percent enlisted. Compared with men, far fewer women expected to enlist, and they were only half as likely actually to do so. These findings show far higher correlations between plans and enlistment than have been found in previous studies using other samples.