Frequent moves, limited access to resources and underemployment can significantly impact the well-being and financial livelihoods of the spouses and partners of American service members.
The recently released annual Blue Star Families Military Family Lifestyle Survey highlights the concerns of military spouses. Employment is their biggest challenge, with career paths often disrupted by relocations. Military spouses often settle for positions that pay an average of 25 percent less than they are qualified to earn.
Isolation and loneliness are also common, exacerbating mental health challenges, according to the survey.
A military spouse herself, Dr. Elisa V. Borah, associate professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin and the director of the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness, has experienced those challenges herself.
“So often the military service member may have to be gone for long periods of time and everything really does fall on the spouse to really keep the home fires burning,” she said. “It’s a challenge to the spouse to have a career and also manage that.”
Borah said that many civilians have the mistaken impression that military families can easily financially survive on just the service member’s salary.
“That’s definitely not the case,” she said. “Spouses are eager to have that source of income to support their family’s needs to lower the stress that their service member who is deployed might feel.”
Borah said the good news is that organizations are stepping up to address the issues.
PMI U.S. works with community, academic and philanthropic partners to support military spouses, including referrals to spouse-focused career supports, training and education.
“There are a number of programs out there that work with employers to help them understand those issues,” she said. “We just try to make sure when we interact with employers, they understand these issues.”
PMI US worked with external partners to create a report to increase awareness about and explore the sacrifices military spouses make to support the nation.
“It’s about reaching out and helping spouses,” Borah said.
Download the full report and explore actionable steps to support military families here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.