Date of Award

Spring 5-18-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Policy (MPP)

First Advisor

Michael Brenes

Subject Area(s)

Demography, Economics, Management, Public policy, Statistics

Abstract

Who is enlisting in Fiscal Year 2025, and what state-level characteristics are associated with military enlistment rates, service selection, and recruit quality? This study documents the geographic landscape of U.S. military accessions during a period of recruiting recovery, filling a gap in the literature by providing a current, empirical description of who enlists and from where in today’s All-Volunteer Force. Drawing on personnel data from the Department of War, the U.S. Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates, and a federal dataset of military installations, I analyze 203,987 new accessions across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps from July 2024 through June 2025. I run three statistical models: an OLS regression estimating state-level enlistment rates as a function of socioeconomic covariates; a series of binary logistic regressions modeling a recruit’s log-odds of enlisting in a given service as a function of same-service installation presence in his home state; and a recruit quality OLS regression estimating the relationship between state characteristics and mean AFQT percentile score.

The findings confirm that the Southern and Sun Belt concentration of military recruiting persists across all four services in the examined period. State unemployment rates, veteran population share, and military installation presence are predictors of enlistment rates. Same-service installation presence modestly correlates with service selection for three of the four services, consistent with the theory that geographic proximity and community exposure to a branch correlate with enlistment decisions. States with higher unemployment rates are associated with lower mean AFQT scores among their recruits, suggesting an association between economic distress and a broader, lower-aptitude recruiting pool. This research underscores the persistence of geographic inequality in accessions to military service and introduces questions about how trends of geographic deepening might relate to the force, civ-mil relations, and future recruiting.

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