Work

Serving God and Country? Religious Involvement and Military Service Among Young Adult Men

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: Despite important connections between religion and military action throughout world history, scholars have seldom explored the association between religiosity and military enlistment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we used a person-oriented analysis to categorize young men according to patterns of adolescent religious involvement. Youth indentified as "highly religious evangelical" are more likely to enlist in the military compared to their "highly religious non-evangelical" and "non-religious" counterparts; however, these findings hold only for those young men without college experience. These findings are discussed along with study limitations and promising directions for future research.

Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01481.x

Authors: Amy M. Burdette, Victor Wang, Glen H. Elder, Terrence D. Hill, Janel Benson

Institutions: Mississippi State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Miami, Colgate University

Language: English

Topic: Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Carolina Population Center, G1789099407, Population Research Training