Fertility
Conscription has long-term demographic effects, draining the potential future workforce and destabilizing family structures. It coerces youth into service, impeding their ability to form families and have children.
Conscription Undermines Demography by Halting Family Formation
Love is often an overlooked victim of conscription.
Military service means taking away a year of life away from an individual. Stopping one in tracks in varied aspects of one’s life. Taking one away from personal projects, friends … and one’s romantic relationship. Separating an individual from relatives and loved ones of all kind, including that deepest bond. A conscript is taken into isolation from the significant other for long months, no matter how dire that need is for the individual. The most he can hope for is to kindle the strained relationship in the rare moments of leave taken, but even that is not available to all conscripts, particularly those moved hundreds of miles away from their home to serve the state.
The mental toll of taking away love from and repressing sexual desires by imprisonment in the military barracks devoid of romance and affection, where intimacy is nearly impossible, may not be easily quantifiable but must have an immense psychological impact. Conscripts in such a state are prone to casual hookups or even prostitution in the nearby towns. There they will fail to fulfil deeper romantic desires and risk the ruin of the relationships in the distance that are barely even aflame after long months of separation. Conscription will be one of the darkest moments in the life of many young men.
While the subject is rather understudied for conscript armies, there is a sea of evidence coming from the US, that shows the stress put on the families by deployment overseas. Those cases are rather comparable to the cases of isolation from loved ones due to conscription.
“Spouses of service personnel who are left alone not only suffer from anxiety but also from depression, anger, and guilt. In addition, there can be changes in physical well-being, including headaches, menstrual irregularity, weight change, and sleep disturbances. As the person solely responsible for family decisions and care of children—really a single parent—severe fatigue often is experienced. Similar effects “are almost always exacerbated in children, from feelings of separation and anxiety to fear, defiance, and school difficulties.”
Following the Flag: Marriage and the Modern Military
Peacetime conscription puts that very strain on partnerships, except for the element of anxiety about the death of the spouse. As a result, the bond between the conscript and his loved one is broken down and severe consequences for their relationship follow.
“Although communication devices are better, the marriage may still suffer and according to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, half of the respondents reported that marital problems were “very common.” Intimacy between spouses is difficult to maintain over months of separation. (…)Of those currently or recently deployed, nearly 69 percent indicated that infidelity was “very” to “some-what” common. (…) Infidelity was fairly common when troops deployed—and not just for the male. “We have men who move into the soldier’s home when he leaves,” she said, looking somewhat bewildered. (…) One wife who worked as a volunteer with Family Services stated that infidelity was rampant among wives of men deployed in the Middle East.”
Following the Flag: Marriage and the Modern Military
The consequences of mandatory military service are not short-lived. A year in the army is often a strain on the romantic relationships formed prior to conscription and stops pairs from starting a family as many couples do not survive twelve months of long distance. How many of the prematurely ended by draft relationships would otherwise end up happily married for long years? Far too many to nonchalantly brush off as an insignificant conscription casualty. How many men lost the perfect period in life to develop mature relationships, but instead delved into sexual frustrations and loneliness, to be preyed upon by internet gurus, seeping in toxic dating advice? The number is not zero. How many children were not born, because a conscripted man could not provide the necessary support to the potential mother in the vital stage of pregnancy? We actually have quite a good idea.
Conscription harms fertility. A study on Spanish conscripts drafted in 2001, shows clear evidence of the harmful effect of conscription on bearing children. Compulsory service for men naturally affects the marriage market and consequently, the decision to have children. Men delay higher education by at least a year. Researchers hypothesize that this leads to older men meeting younger women when partners usually meet at college. When partners already knew each other before the draft, military service postpones marriage, as well as plans to have children. As a result, there are fewer children born since women might be unwilling or unable to have a child after a certain age.
Once Spain ended the draft, individuals who chose to become parents started to have their first child earlier. As a result of the reform, men started to have their first child between 3 and 4 years earlier on average. Most importantly, families became between 2.2 and 4.5% more likely to have a child and started to have between 0.036 and 0.069 children more. This means that for Europe battling the persistent low birth rates, the abolition of conscription will help mitigate the low fertility concerns.
Conscription creates burdens on men that make them evade parenthood. But some find themselves, still fathering a child in the adverse hardships concocted by the state. One parent is taken away by the state and the other one is left to navigate childbearing and raising on her own.
Just imagine the strain of being forced to pay child support during military service. Under such a scenario, the slave wages paid to conscripts would be virtually depleted, just by this cost. And without child support, how is a young mother supposed to survive the expenses that come with childbirth and raising a newborn? The medical bills alone are enough to put young families through financial tribulations. And there are those who cannot rely on the support of parents or extended family during this time.
Conscription creates single mothers and fatherless infants for at least the first year of their life. What price tag can be put on the loss of this crucial bond between the father and his son or daughter? How dare the state put such a strain on a young mother, by taking hostage their partner?
It is madness to capture young men away from their homes, depriving them of their romantic partners and families. It is lunacy to imprison them in military barracks, away from their infants. It is insanity to pay them slave wages that often can’t cover their living expenses and certainly won’t suffice to raise a child. It is derangement to suspend an individual’s freedom for an entire year, subjugating him to the ruthless command of military life. Conscription at its core is madness. Every shred of humanity we have demands its abolition.
In other regions of the world, an opposite mechanism might be at play. Depending on the draft eligibility requirements one might be more likely to avoid army service by marriage or parenthood. Men will in such a case seek rushed relationships just for this purpose. This method of draft evasion can be tracked as far back as the War of the First Coalition in 1793 between France and Austria.
A national levy was called by French revolutionary authorities seeking all able-bodied between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five to service, with the exception of married men or widowers with children.
“A national rush to the altar occurred upon the declaration of this exemption, and so exemptions were limited to men who married before the declaration of the law”.
Conscription, family, and the modern state: A Comparative Study of France and the United States
In this case, the fate of the hopeless singles was as dire as that of the newlywed.
While the draft with such exemptions may provide some boost to fertility numbers, the likely result is increased divorce rates, broken families and children mixed up in their parent’s divorce. Even worse can be long years of strung-along marriages that should have been already ended, but continue out of sheer inertia.
Love is the most vital aspect of life. Conscription is a crime against love and as such a crime against humanity itself.
Explore the evidence
Milovanska-Farrington, Stefani. “Effect of Military Service on Fertility: Evidence from the 2001 Draft Suspension in Spain
Alcohol Consumption, Brothel Attendance, and Condom Use: Normative Expectations among Thai Military Conscripts
Following the Flag: Marriage and the Modern Military
