Even experienced professionals like Mary Houston struggle to build a career when they have to PCS every couple of years.
Shortly after marrying an Air Force pilot, I was offered a university communications job. Because of my military ties they requested a multi-year agreement so I wouldn’t leave the position. I balked. An unexpected PCS aside, what if the role wasn’t as promised? Would they have asked the same of another candidate? It illustrates just one of the complexities military spouses face as they seek employment.
As unemployment rates for civilians cede to 3.4% from their heightened Covid-19 levels, for military spouses, it remains around 22% after peaking at 38%, and that doesn’t account for those who are underemployed or have left the workforce. The oft-cited contributing factors are frequent moves, relicensing complications, and inadequate childcare. But unemployment for military spouses is saddled with hundreds of other micro-issues, ranging from inconsistent active-duty schedules that create childcare challenges to rural locations that lack professional opportunities to antiquated international agreements that prohibit employment. These issues and countless others make creating a meaningful, purposeful, and fulfilling career rather challenging.
Branding the issue as a spouse problem is shortsighted. Last October, First Lady Jill Biden said that 40% of military families have considered leaving active duty because of spouse employment. As retention issues persist, employment begs consideration.
To adequately address the issue, it’s important to understand who current military spouses are. While they remain female and predominantly under age 40, according to the “Social Cost Analysis of the Unemployment and Underemployment of Military Spouses” by Blue Star Families, today spouses are more educated than their civilian peers, including a large percentage of spouses with advanced degrees. According to the Department of Labor, 89% of military spouses have some college education, though only slightly more than half participate in the labor market. Their reasons are varied, as are their stories.
Jobs, Not a Career
Mary Houston is a physician assistant (PA) and Air Force wife currently based in Virginia. She laughs when she says her career aspirations veered immediately after meeting her husband. She had planned to attend medical school; instead they were sent to Alaska, where she was inspired by the number of PAs working in rural medicine.
Given her medical credentials, finding jobs isn’t typically hard, but developing a career is. She has bounced from primary care to ER to pre-surgery evaluations. While she has maintained fairly consistent employment for over a decade, it hasn’t crescendoed like her former classmates.
“I have had jobs. I have not built a career,” she says. “I’m always just a new PA…I feel like I have to kind of constantly prove myself at every new job.”
She continues, “Since I haven’t seen that build, you sort of wonder like, is there a purpose to what I’m doing?” Though not part of her profession, she notes she did find meaning while serving families as a command spouse while her husband led the 336FS.
Taking a Back Seat
Emily Whitten tells two very different employment stories. Whitten, an Army spouse, met and married her husband while he was stationed at Fort Campbell near Nashville, where she was a director of a healthcare company. Thanks to the post’s proximity to a metropolitan area, they both could chase upward careers with opportunities aplenty.
When her husband was accepted to the Army Command and General Staff College, a quick, 10-month assignment, she took a hiatus and had their first child. It was at their next assignment that she, a former military officer herself, saw just how challenging finding employment could be.
“We live in beautiful Junction City, Kansas. It’s not a thriving business or employment center. There are not many opportunities here,” she says. “It’s getting so much better with remote work and whatnot, but it’s still hard to find those opportunities.”
Whitten notes there are efforts to help military spouses get jobs, but they’re not always appropriate jobs.
“There are so many organizations that do so much for military spouse employment, but in my experience I found that most of those…opportunities you don’t need a lot of experience or education, which is wonderful, but I put a lot of time and energy and money into my education and professional certifications and I don’t want to be a customer service representative,” Whitten says.
Whitten also became the sole caregiver for their 1-year-old when her husband deployed. Even with a reliable daycare, Whitten asked potential employers about flexibility for remote work on days when her child was sick. Several said no, so she agreed to a low-paying but flexible consulting job. The reality, she admits, is that even if her husband was home, given his schedule and responsibilities, she would still be the primary, and often sole, caregiver.
“I just don’t know how I would have a career and have him be in a key development role and have a child. Something has to give…so right now, my career takes a backseat,” she says.
Snagged by SOFA
Liliana Mellor has a doctorate in anatomy and cell biology. Though she was originally a marine biologist, when her husband joined the Air Force, Mellor pivoted to medical research. While stationed in Idaho, she received a four-year fellowship from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute within NASA to study the effects of microgravity and radiation on the human body during space travel. She moved the grant to North Carolina when her husband was re-stationed,
but their next move proved less accommodating.
The Mellors moved to Spain, where she received a job offer from a top cancer research center. A Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) with the host country precluded her from working, but with persistence and a connection at the U.S. Embassy, she secured a permit that stipulated she was the preferred candidate because she was a native English speaker and had research experience in the US. In three years there she published several breakthrough articles on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.
Hoping to capitalize on those publications, she looked for work in Italy, their next assignment. But there she was told the Italian SOFA did not allow military dependents to work unless they surrendered their military benefits, even if they worked remotely for an American company.
“It’s pretty stressful for me. I think it was more the frustration of knowing that I fought so hard for this career. It’s not an easy field that I chose, and with moving it was very challenging, but I somehow found a way to always kind of get promoted and find something better,” Mellor says, but now she is left without options.
“In my career, if you stop even for one year, it’s career-ending,” she explains. Because she cannot maintain her research and publication tempo, she believes when they return stateside, she’ll have to take an entry level position in a lab, rather than a faculty position.
Career aside, she notes that for many families, dropping to a single salary in an expensive country causes undue strain. If SOFA is intended to protect the local economy she believes it backfires because most families are forced to rely on one income and cut back. She suggests that updates to SOFA could both allow for spouse employment, even remotely, and would have financial benefits for the host countries as well.
License Reciprocity
Houston believes that while there’s room for improvement, things are shifting for good. “I think the way the Air Force is moving with trying to get people more time, more heads up for assignments, is movement in the right direction.”
That advanced notice helps with relicensing, she adds. If people can start the application process earlier, they may avoid gaps in employment. According to a 2019 DoD survey, one in five military spouses who require licensing have waited more than 10 months for new credentials. As for reimbursing those licenses, groups like MySECO do offer a sum, but it’s cumbersome, requires payment up front, and only covers a fraction of the cost, Houston says.
In January 2023, tucked into the “Veterans Auto and Education Improvement Act of 2022,” was an amendment titled “Portability of Professional Licenses of Servicemembers and Their Spouses,” which requires that all states honor an active license or certification of a service member or spouse who has relocated because of military orders, essentially guaranteeing national reciprocity. Though law licenses are not eligible, the bill ought to save many military families money, time and frustration.
It’s a step. As Mellor, Whitten and Houstons’ stories show, the obstacles military spouses face vary widely, and one sweeping solution cannot address all the challenges. But understanding the variety of unique circumstances will hopefully, in time, create a series of resources that shrink the hurdles military spouses face as they seek fulfilling employment.