arbiter
JournalsAccount

The impact of World War II Army service on income and mobility in the 1960s by ethnoracial group

Sergio Barrera et al.

Explorations in Economic History2025https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101687article
AJG 3ABDC A
Weight
0.46

Abstract

We link the 1940 full-count Census to World War II enlistment records and 1969 administrative tax returns to study how WWII service in the Army and Army Airforce impacted the income and mobility of non-Hispanic White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American male Army veterans relative to their non-Army counterparts in 1969. The size of our data set provides enough power to shed new light on previously understudied groups, such as Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. In comparisons of Army veterans with non-Army men, Ordinary Least Squares estimates suggest that WWII Army veterans had higher incomes than non-Army men within the same group, and Army veterans were less likely to change counties between 1940 and 1969 than non-Army men within the non-Hispanic White, Black, and Hispanic groups. Worries about selection bias led us to estimate the effects with a fuzzy regression discontinuity design that compares men who were just too young to serve during World War II to men who were just old enough to serve. Those results showed that Army veterans had lower adjusted gross incomes than non-Army men within the non-Hispanic White, Black, and Asian groups, and slightly higher incomes within the Hispanic and Native American groups. The differences varied by type of income. Migration across county boundaries was lower for Army veterans than non-Army men among non-Hispanic Whites, Asians, and Native Americans, and there were only small differences among Blacks and Hispanics.

4 citations

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101687

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{sergio2025,
  title        = {{The impact of World War II Army service on income and mobility in the 1960s by ethnoracial group}},
  author       = {Sergio Barrera et al.},
  journal      = {Explorations in Economic History},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101687},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

The impact of World War II Army service on income and mobility in the 1960s by ethnoracial group

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.46

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.37 × 0.4 = 0.15
M · momentum0.60 × 0.15 = 0.09
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.