Youth interest in military service is in a long plummet, and teenage girls are dramatically less confident than boys that they have what it takes to be successful in uniform. That’s according to a new data compilation from Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies, or JAMRS, the Defense Department’s internal polling agency.
But amid a torrent of bad news for military recruiting, officials are sounding one note of optimism: better understanding of younger generations’ barriers to service, real or imagined, provide the chance to counteract misconceptions and speak more effectively to the recruitable population.
At a brief to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services on Dec. 10, JAMRS director Jeremy Hall showed that a significant drop in interest in military service following the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly becoming the new normal for recruiting.
From 2012 to 2019, 13% of young people aged 16-21 said they saw themselves “definitely” or “probably” serving in the military in the next few years, but that average dropped to just 10% from 2020 to 2023. That 3% change, he added, represents about a million American youth.
Moreover, data shows, women in particular lack the confidence to pursue military aspirations, even if they have them. According to surveys completed in the fall and spring of 2023, 26% of young men say they’re probably or definitely sure they could fight in a war, compared to just 8% of young women.
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Some 53% of young men say they believe they could make it through boot camp, while just 27% of young women say they could. Young men and women show the most confidence that they have what it takes to hack it in the Army, at 37% and 17%, respectively, and the least confidence they could make it in the Marine Corps, at 26% and 11%.
Both men and women are becoming less confident in their ability to serve, DOD data shows. Overall, young men rate confidence at 43%, compared to 51% in 2018; while young women rate confidence at 26%, down from 33% in 2018.
Regardless of reality, perception matters, Hall said.
“Vibe is a KPI,” he said, using the business term for “key performance indicator.”
“[Young people] draw things from their perceptions and associations,” he added, “and those are typically good enough for what it means to serve in uniform.”
Top influencers in young peoples’ lives — their parents, aunts, uncles, coaches and other adults — aren’t doing much to push them toward service, JAMRS data shows.
Specifically, parents with daughters are dramatically less likely to encourage their children to serve than parents with sons, 42% versus 32%. While that gap appeared to be closing in the early and mid-2000s, it widened again in 2020 to its greatest-ever disparity, with 45% of parents with sons saying they’d encourage service compared to just 30% of parents with daughters.
Hall did not name specific cases, such as the disappearance and murder of Army Spc. Vanessa Guillen in 2020 that drove national headlines and outrage, but noted that the summer of 2020 had “several instances” of military sexual assault and harassment in the news.
“We’ve seen this topic stay on the radar for female youth and particularly parents, this idea of the possibility of sexual assault and harassment,” he said.
Beyond fears and concerns based on recent events, JAMRS knowledge surveys show teens have an outdated or off-base idea about the military in general. Only one in five boys and one in 10 girls can name all six military services, and only 38% of young people, on average, said they knew the difference between an enlisted person and an officer.
Hall said he found it humorous that a number of survey takers reported believing that members of the Marine Corps served, not in amphibious environments, but on submarines.
Some 32% of girls and 26% of boys cited a fear of possible injury or death as a significant concern preventing them from joining the military, which Hall pointed out was based on a caricature of what military members did.
“You know, the general view is, you live in the barracks, you get up first thing in the morning, you march around, you shoot things, you go to bed, and you deploy to places that are brown and dusty and live in tents,” he said.
Media portrayals don’t help things, Hall added.
“How service and service members are portrayed in popular media is that noble yet damaged warrior haunted by their military experience,” he said. “Because the military does not have a presence in many communities.”
So, where do military recruiters, already challenged by a population less qualified for service than any before it, go from here?
Hall said he believes the solution is engaging earlier and heading off misperceptions at the pass with accurate and contemporary pictures of military service.
“What we’ve talked about with the services since we’ve come out of the pandemic is really a need to reconnect with American communities, to connect with those communities that don’t have a large veteran population or military installation,” he said.
“Because what we see, day in and day out, is … about 40% of accessions in any given year are from young people who did not think about the military until the year that they joined. They were once not propensed, and that engagement with a military member, particularly when we see young women joining the military today, is a combined result of that market outreach and that recruiter interaction.”
The Defense Department, Hall said, is now developing five new advertising spots targeted to young adults that emphasize the military as a transcendent path, rather than a career choice of last resort.
In February, he said, the new campaign will go live: “You have a calling; we have an answer.”
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