Working Paper: NBER ID: w12416
Authors: Chulhee Lee
Abstract: Although the Civil War has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, little is known about how different wartime experiences of soldiers influenced their civilian lives after the war. This paper examines how military rank and duty of Union Army soldiers while in service affected their post-service occupational mobility. Higher ranks and non-infantry duties appear to have provided more opportunities for developing skills, especially those required for white-collar jobs. Among the recruits who were unskilled workers at the time of enlistment, commissioned and non-commissioned officers were much more likely to move up to a white-collar job by 1880. Similarly, unskilled recruits who had served on white-collar military duties were more likely to enter a white-collar occupation by 1880. The higher occupational mobility of higher-ranking soldiers is likely to have resulted from disparate human capital accumulations offered by their military positions rather than from their superior abilities.
Keywords: Civil War; occupational mobility; Union Army veterans; military rank; human capital
JEL Codes: J24; J5; N3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| human capital accumulation (J24) | likelihood of moving to white-collar jobs by 1880 (J62) |
| higher ranks (sergeants and officers) (J45) | likelihood of moving to white-collar jobs by 1880 (J62) |
| unskilled recruits who served in white-collar military duties (J45) | likelihood of entering white-collar occupations by 1880 (J79) |
| longer service and younger recruits (J45) | impact of military rank and duty on occupational mobility (J62) |
| military rank (H56) | occupational mobility (J62) |
| pre-existing abilities (Y80) | military rank and postservice mobility (J62) |