The impact of military lifestyle demands on well-being, army, and family outcomes

Abstract

Adopting M. Segal's framework, we focused on examining four military lifestyle demands - (1) risk of service member injury or death, (2) frequent relocations, (3) periodic separations, and (4) foreign residence - and their relationships to psychological and physical well-being, satisfaction with the Army, and marital satisfaction. Questionnaire results from 346 spouses living overseas indicated that the impact of separations was negatively related to all four outcomes, while foreign residence was negatively related to physical and psychological well-being, fear for soldier safety was negatively related to physical well-being, and the impact of moving was negatively related to satisfaction with the Army. The results further indicated that perceptions of moving and separations were more important in determining outcomes than were the actual number of moves or separations. © 2006, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. All rights reserved.