Military spousal/partner employment : identifying the barriers and support required

At the Army Families Federation (AFF), we have long been aware of the challenges that military families face when attempting to maintain a career, or even just a job, alongside the typically very mobile life that comes with the territory. We are delighted to have been given LIBOR funding to further explore the employment situation that many partners find themselves in, and very grateful for the excellent job that the Warwick Institute for Employment Research have done, in giving this important area of work the impetus of academically driven evidence it needed to take it to the next level. Being a military family is unique and being the partner of a serving person is also unique; long distances from family support, intermittent support from the serving partner, and a highly mobile way of life creates unique challenges for non-serving partners, especially when it comes to looking for work and trying to maintain a career. This report gets to the heart of how these barriers affect the lives of military partners, and provides important information on what is needed to help improve the situation. The report also highlights the importance of differentiating between a job, and a career. 70 per cent of respondents interviewed for this research have changed career path since becoming a military partner. This is interesting to us and supports our belief that many non-serving partners are ‘underemployed’, but nevertheless choose to remain in work because of the need to maintain some sort of identity, as well as for any financial concerns. It’s extremely important that policy makers recognise the barriers to military partner employment that we’ve identified in this report, and work with us to implement some of the recommendations to improve the situation. We know from previous research and official surveys such as FAMCAS, that partner employment is crucial for the retention of our serving personnel. Our organisation is working hard to do what we can to enable military partners to maintain reasonable employment, so, as recommended in this report, we are currently in talks with stakeholders and a national recruitment agency to build a ‘one stop’ employment platform that will bring together jobs available with covenant signatories, and the support on offer from other organisations to help military partners to get back into work.