Inductivist

A new study from NBER gives empirical support to the saying that, "There are no atheists in foxholes":

Learning to cope with man’s mortality is central to the teachings of the world’s major religions. However, very little is known about the impact of life-and-death trauma on religiosity. This study exploits a natural experiment in military deployments to estimate the causal effect of traumatic shocks on religiosity. We find that combat assignment is associated with a substantial increase in the probability that a serviceman subsequently attends religious services regularly and engages in private prayer. Combat-induced increases in religiosity are largest for enlisted servicemen, those under age 25, and servicemen wounded in combat. The physical and psychological burdens of war, as well as the presence of military chaplains in combat zones, emerge as possible mechanisms.

Memorial Day is a good day to look at military data, and it happens to be an opportunity to echo Razib's call to mend, not end, the American Community Survey. The survey asked respondents their ancestry, and if they are now serving or ever served in the military. I limited the sample to native-born Americans and to people ages 20 to 39 in order to focus on a single cohort. I list the percentages who answered yes by their ancestry (sample size = 1.74 million) and since there are as many categories as countries in the world I only list groups with the highest and lowest numbers. The mediocre middle is left out.


Percent serving in the military now or in the past

Above-average groups

Prussian 12.7
South African 12.3
Guamanian 12.2
Germans from Russia 11.4
Okinawan 11.1
Panamanian 10.2
West Indian 9.9
Belizean 9.8
Indonesian 9.8
Scottish 9.4
Dutch West Indies 8.7
Pacific Islander 8.6
Sicilian 8.6
Scots Irish 8.1
Australian 8.0
African 8.0


Below-average groups

Haitian 3.8
Turkish 3.7
Arab 3.4
Egyptian 3.3
Vietnamese 3.0
Israeli 3.0
Iranian 3.0
Armenian 2.8
Palestinian 2.6
Chinese 2.4
Hmong 2.0
Asian Indian 1.9
Taiwanese 1.8
Pakistani 1.3
Macedonian 1.2
Iraqi 0.0

It's great that Prussians come out on top, but I suspect that some military folks are being selective in which part of their ancestry they identify with. The high-serving groups are an interesting assortment. Using GSS data, I reported in an earlier post that West Indians like Colin Powell are more likely to serve than most groups. Pacific Islanders have high numbers as do your well-known tough guys: the Scots Irish and Sicilians.

On the low end, you have Asians and Middle-Easterners. It looks like Muslims (and Israelis for that matter) don't like to serve, but does anyone know the religion of most American Indonesians?  Are they Muslims?

Also--Mexican-Americans, contrary to the claims of some, do not serve in high numbers. Between 4.4 and 5.3 percent serve or have served (depending on whether you focus on the "Mexican" or "Mexican-American" category). That's below the national average of 6.3 percent.

According to the GSS (sample = 681), among those who consider immigration to be the single most important national issue, 42.4 percent feel that we don't spend enough on defense. Compare that to only 27.8 percent of all respondents. I suspect that people who are especially concerned about national security tend to be both hawkish and strongly against illegal immigration.

In the late 80s and early 90s, GSS participants were asked if they have ever served in the military. Slightly more than 20 percent of gay men (of all ages) said they had. This is a much greater estimate than we would get for young gay men now, but let's stick with it. According to CNN, only one-sixth of gay enlisted men plan to come out now that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy will be ended. So multiplying the two percentages gives us 3 percent of gay men who will ever make use of the new policy. According to research, around 3 percent of all men are gay, so if we multiply 3 percent by 3 percent, we get basically 1 out of 1,000 men who will ever be affected by the change in policy. The number would be probably be even smaller for women since there are half as many lesbians as gay men (according to the GSS, 21.6% of lesbians say they have served). 

I'm pleased that the Democrats feel so good about themselves after getting the policy changed, because otherwise it kinda seems like a waste of time. 

Personally, I wish lawmakers would focus on issues slightly more important; for instance, whether the hundreds of thousands of embryos and fetuses that are killed every year are immature humans or not.      

In the last post, Steve Sailer suggested I look at Americans born after 1954 since many born prior to this time would have been subject to the draft.  This strategy reduces the sample size substantially, so I threw in bisexuals with homosexuals, which yields 23 gay men and 13 lesbians (not enough, really). The percentages ever serving in the military are as follows:

Percent ever serving

Straight men 13.6
Gay men 17.4
Straight women 2.5
Lesbians 7.7   

Based on these more recent numbers, and once again assuming 3 percent of all men are gay and 1.5 percent of women are lesbian, "don't ask, don't tell" is an issue for about 3 in 1,000 Americans.

I see that a proposal to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" ban against gays serving openly in the military is expected to be voted on in Congress perhaps this week.  That got me wondering what percent of gay men and lesbians actually serve in the military.

 GSS respondents were asked: "Have you ever been on active duty for military training or service for two consecutive months or more?"
 
According to my analysis, 20.4 percent of gay men (compared to 36.1 percent of straight men) and 21.6 percent of lesbians have served (compared to 1.4 percent of straight women). (All the estimates seem high, except for the hetero women, but the question was asked 1974-1994, so that probably explains it.)

So if we assume that 3 percent of all men are gay and 1.5 percent of all women are lesbian, "don't ask, don't tell" has been an issue for close to 1 in 200 Americans. 

Academics disgust me. This week was the second time that I witnessed what looks very much like anti-military discrimination. We were doing telephone interviews for a replacement position, and one candidate seemed particularly strong. Great vita. Ivy League. Post-doc at an impressive place. Good publications. Math whiz. Then I heard the man speak. I literally thought to myself, "This guy sounds like Steven Pinker." Beautiful answers.

When we hung up the phone, a committee member beat me to the punch and started rattling off all the reasons why we didn't want the guy. They were all bogus. I'm a little slow on the uptake, but then it hit me that she didn't want him because he is ex-military. Of course she is not going to admit that. Either she outright dislikes the military, or she sees it as a sign that the candidate probably does not have a lifetime subscription to The Nation like she does. I proceeded to debate her but then the others jumped in and took her side. And veterans are supposed to get a break--what a joke.

I consoled myself that he's too good for us anyway and will do very well somewhere. Who knows, maybe he'll be out with his own Blank Slate in a few years, and I'm damn happy it won't have our university's name on it.   

The South is the most pro-military region of the country, right? Wrong. The General Social Survey asked 1,453 people the following question: "There are different opinions as to what it takes to be a good citizen. As far as you are concerned personally on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is not at all important and 7 is very important, how important is it to be willing to serve in the military at a time of need?" I calculated the means for each of the nine regions of the country, and listed them below:


Mean pro-military score

Mountain 5.96
East South Central 5.80
South Atlantic 5.50
West South Central 5.48
West North Central 5.48

USA 5.45

East North Central 5.43
Pacific 5.27
Middle Atlantic 5.21
New England 5.15


Yep, it's the Mountain states--a part of the country I really like, and not just for the mountains.

Now, maybe you're smart and are thinking, "Well yeah, the South has a lot of blacks who, as a group, are not so pro-military." Nice try, Pointdexter--here's the list with blacks omitted:


Mean pro-military score--whites

Mountain 5.95
West South Central 5.92
East South Central 5.86
South Atlantic 5.79

All whites 5.62

East North Central 5.53
West North Central 5.50
Middle Atlantic 5.42
Pacific 5.36
New England 5.12


Removing blacks did increase the overall mean, and it moved regions up that have substantial numbers of blacks, but folks in the Intermountain West are still more pro-military than white Southerners.

As a side note, the regional pattern suggests that political orientation has a lot to do with attitude toward serving. Of those who said it is very important to serve in a time of need, 65% voted for Bush in 2000, and only 34% went for Gore. By contrast, if the answer was not important at all, 80% voted for Gore and 20% went for Bush.

These numbers support the contention that, compared to conservatives, liberals are allergic to military service.

Sixteen percent of female veterans are lesbian: Folks with their eyes open can see that gay men are more feminine than straight guys, while lesbians are more masculine than hetero women. Don't believe me? Well, let's test the hypothesis with the military. I bet that the percentage of female veterans who are lesbian is higher than the share of male veterans who are gay. The General Social Survey asked 3,644 Americans about the gender of their sex partners, and if they have served in the military. Here are the percentages who are gay and straight (warning: samples sizes are low for homosexual men and lesbians):


Percent who are homosexual

Male veterans 1.5
Male non-veterans 3.2
Female veterans 15.6
Female non-veterans 0.9

See? I told you so.