As indicated in Table 4.11, officers were more likely to be married than the enlisted personnel they lead.  It is interesting to note that for officers as well as enlisted personnel, women on active duty were less likely than men to be married.  In fact, while nearly three-quarters of male officers were married, only 53 percent of women officers had a spouse.  Furthermore, whereas male officers were more likely than their civilian counterparts (college graduates in the workforce 21 to 49 years of age) to be married, female officers were less likely to be married. This suggests that women in the officer corps are more divergent from their civilian peers regarding family patterns.

 

Though female officers are less likely to be married than male officers, among those who are married women are considerably more likely to be a partner in a dual-military marriage.  As can be seen from Table 4.12, married female officers are more than eight times more likely than married male officers to have a spouse in uniform.  This trend is more than a curiosity, as dual-service marriages pose unique challenges to assignment and deployment, in addition to affecting Servicemembers' satisfaction with military life.

Table 4.12.  FY 1999 Active Component Officers Who Were Married, and in Dual-Service Marriages, by Gender and Service (Number and Percent)
		Married		Married Who Were In Dual-Service Marriages
Gender	End-Strength	Number	Percent	Number*	Percent
ARMY
Male	56,364	40,850	72.5	2,479	6.1
Female	9,740	5,236	53.8	2,539	48.5
Total	66,104	46,086	69.7	5,018	10.9
NAVY
Male	44,467	30,778	69.2	533	1.7
Female	7,669	3,693	48.2	720	19.5
Total	52,136	34,471	66.1	1,253	3.6
MARINE CORPS
Male	15,274	10,714	70.2	343	3.2
Female	781	319	40.9	213	66.8
Total	16,055	11,033	68.7	556	5.0
AIR FORCE
Male	58,480	44,976	76.9	2,343	5.2
Female	11,841	6,575	55.5	2,447	37.2
Total	70,321	51,551	73.3	4,790	9.3
DoD
Male	174,585	127,318	72.9	5,698	4.5
Female	30,031	15,823	52.7	5,919	37.4
Total	204,616	143,141	70.0	11,617	8.1
* There are some differences between the number of males and females reporting dual-service marriages.