A new study by Daniel Almén examines Sweden’s selective conscription system and finds that even a smaller, targeted draft can disrupt young men’s civilian lives. Using Sweden’s 2004 military downsizing as a natural experiment, the paper finds that conscription increased short-term unemployment, caused an initial earnings drop, delayed educational enrolment, and produced renewed negative earnings effects after age 30.
“Overall, conscripts exhibit weaker attachment to the labour market, experiencing higher unemployment and a greater incidence of zero earnings until their mid-20s. The probability of unemployment rises by about 7 percentage points in the short run (ages 22–25), and the number of unemployed days increases by roughly 23 – corresponding to increases of about 20 and 40% relative to the outcome means. Higher initial unemployment after service is expected, as conscripts’ entry into the labour market is delayed, while exempted individuals have already gained some experience. However, the increased unemployment among conscripts persists for several years, with an approximately 10 percentage point annual increase at the extensive margin. Thus, service appears to interrupt and delay labour-market entry, and the effect seems greater than the purely mechanical consequence of postponed entry. Hence, employers seem to value military experience no more than civilian work or education.
Earnings and employment decline sharply during and immediately after service but recover by age 22. However, earnings estimates become negative and statistically significant beyond age 30. Estimates on educational enrolment indicate delayed entry into education, though long-run attainment appears unaffected. (…) The results suggest that the high-ability group drives the increased unemployment and the negative earnings effects observed beyond age 30. No effects are found on educational attainment, although the estimates indicate delayed enrolment in education. By contrast, there is no evidence of adverse labour-market effects for low-ability conscripts, for whom costs and benefits appear to roughly balance; instead, they attain higher levels of education and are less likely to be out of the labour market in the years following service. The benefits of officer training appear insufficient to offset the higher opportunity costs faced by high-ability conscripts, which are further reinforced by the longer service duration”
Daniel Almén, “Effects of selective conscription on the labour market and education: Evidence from Sweden,” European Journal of Political Economy 93, June 2026, 102793. Quoted under CC BY 4.0.
This study is quite consistent with much of the existing research on conscription in the Nordic countries. In our previous report, we conducted an extensive review of the evidence on the economic impact of conscription across all four cases.
Low pay is only the most immediate burden of Nordic conscription; forced service imposes lasting costs on education, careers, and future earnings. The most well-studied in this regard is Sweden. A study published in October by the Swedish Defence Research Agency estimated that conscription costs men in Sweden an average of €50,844 in lifetime earnings and pensions, due to the negative impact on their careers.35 Of this amount, around €47,442 consists of lost labour income during working life, while the remaining part is attributable to a lower future pension. This means that, on top of the already low pay Swedish conscripts receive, fully compensating them for this loss of income would require a tax-free lump sum payment of roughly €29,605.
In an earlier study on the issue, the agency outlined that forced service creates a longer interruption to studies or other work than the actual period of military training itself, while also delaying or disrupting investment in civilian education.223 Beyond that, conscription leads to inefficient matching between people and jobs, resulting in productivity losses and a poorer use of individual skills. The negative socio-economic effects of conscription become even greater as an ever larger share of the population reaches retirement age. In a country with a fertility rate of 1.45, conscription becomes more costly with each passing year.
The Conscript Council captured the essence of the injustice in its 2025 report: “The minority who already sacrifice time and energy to staff Sweden’s military defence should not, on top of that, suffer an economic loss. (…) Total defence ought to be a concern for the whole Swedish population (…) it is unreasonable that today’s conscripts in basic training, who do not even make up a tenth of their age cohort, should be denied the possibility of economic equality with their peers after secondary school. (…) As things stand today, basic training means falling behind others at an early stage in life.”37
Another cost worth noting is the cost of assessment. Because Sweden subjects large numbers of young people to mass conscription screening, it bears substantial costs before training even begins. These costs are striking both in total and on a per-person basis. In 2025, assessments and tests for 29,953 people cost more than €1,153 per person, amounting to nearly €35 million overall. It is reasonable to assume that these costs would be significantly lower if unwilling men and women, as well as those clearly unfit for military service, were not forced to participate and waste everyone’s time only to be rejected in the end.
In Finland, Europe’s foremost scholar of conscription, Panu Poutvaara, estimated that the true economic cost of the draft was substantially higher than the defence budget itself, with hidden costs on the order of 1 to 2% of GDP.34 As Finland’s national broadcaster summarised his argument, “contrary to popular opinion, conscription is an expensive system for the Finnish economy. (…) Poutvaara says that abolishing mandatory conscription would allow greater spending on defence without hurting the rest of the economy.” A 2021 study likewise estimated that the opportunity cost of men being kept out of work by conscription alone amounted to at least 0.4% of GDP, even before taking into account any later career damage.224 Taken together, this evidence suggests that staffing the armed forces with well-paid professionals, while maintaining the same level of firepower, could be cheaper than living with the costly distortions imposed by the Finnish draft.
In Norway, less recent research is available, with the last in-depth analysis conducted in 2007 by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. It found that maintaining 9,300 individuals in initial service imposed a cumulative opportunity cost of roughly €45 million per year at the time, equivalent to roughly €74.8 million in 2025 prices.41 A 2005 study by NTNU professor Gunnar Wille estimated that 9,500 conscripts had an alternative civilian productive potential of NOK 1.5 billion per year, equivalent to about €226 million in today’s money.225
Furthermore, other analyses suggest that it is not at all advantageous for the Armed Forces, even though it provides cheap labour. “Frank Brundtland Steder of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment has concluded that it is more profitable to have soldiers on contract, both in terms of operational capability and in terms of money. (…) Calculations show that the Armed Forces could save two billion kroner annually by replacing 10,000 conscripts on 12-month contracts with the same number of contracted soldiers on four-year contracts. The assumptions here are that one conscript year of labour costs about 300,000 kroner and involves nine months of training and only three months of effective service. That means four soldiers are required in order to achieve one full year of effective service, or 1.2 million kroner per effective service year.” 225
The savings from conscription could therefore amount to €285.2 million in 2025 prices. That is a substantial sum for a military under severe financial strain, yet it is being squandered on an economically abusive conscription system.
Lastly, the Danish evidence points in the same direction. A 2020 study found that conscription imposes higher average opportunity costs than an all-volunteer system.42 The reason is that men with relatively high civilian earning potential, who would never volunteer at the prevailing military wage, are nevertheless forced into service under the draft.
The study observed that military service reduces earnings by an average of 2.5% between the ages of 25 and 35 relative to a counterfactual in which the individual did not serve. As the authors note, “For low ability men who are drafted and serve, there is no earnings effect, but high ability men face significant earnings penalties.” Among men in the top quartile, the earnings penalty rises to 7%. For these men, the losses persist until age 30 and amount to roughly $23,000 in foregone lifetime earnings. The authors further estimate that earnings during service would have to double in order to offset these later losses. The main mechanism appears to be disruption to educational trajectories, particularly through delayed enrolment in and completion of studies. A Times article quoted a 17-year-old girl who said she feared that conscription could derail her academic plans.112
While the Danish political class has shown little appetite for confronting the economic costs of conscription, the damage it inflicts on careers and labour supply is occasionally acknowledged when more aggressive reform proposals surface. This was the case when Foreign Minister Rasmussen criticised the proposal to nearly triple the annual intake of conscripts to 13,000.39 As he warned, “if one simply doubles the number of conscripts with the snap of a finger, then one also has to consider what that means for our economy and labour supply.” He added that “if many more people have to wear the green uniform, then there is a risk that there will not be enough people for the white coats or the boiler suits or the other jobs that keep the wheels of society turning.” The obvious question is why such concerns are treated as relevant only when conscription is expanded, and not when assessing the economic damage inflicted by the system already in place.
In every Nordic country, conscription amounts to an economic disaster. Its costs are so extensive that a professional force of equal military effectiveness would be cheaper once all costs are properly accounted for. The evidence also delivers a ruthless debunking of the comforting myth that the draft pays for itself by producing discipline and leadership skills that later boost civilian careers. Far from building future success, conscription imposes a lasting net cost on young Nordic men.
Read the entire report here.
