Change in Socioeconomic Status & the Role of Transition among those who have left the UK Armed Forces

Abstract: One of the key indicators of a successful transition for many ex-Service personnel is securing employment to help create economic sustainability. However, there is relatively little exploration of the factors associated with the types of socioeconomic transitions experienced after leaving. The overall aim of this study was to conduct a holistic investigation of the reasons why, and to what degree, the lives of ex-Service personnel improve or worsen after leaving the UK Armed Forces. Specifically, we explored how many Service leavers experience positive and negative changes in socioeconomic status from military to civilian life, and how preenlistment and in-service factors (such as childhood adversity, Service arm, and mental health and wellbeing) may affect the economic change of ex-serving members. There was also a focus on less well explored subgroups of interest, specifically women, early leavers and ex-reservists to address the identified evidence gaps. This study adopted a mixed-methods approach. Firstly, data collected from Armed Forces personnel was quantitatively analysed from three large comprehensive datasets: the third phase of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) cohort data (N=3,453), the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) (N=218) and the Royal British Legion (RBL) Household Survey (N=524) (the latter two surveys being household surveys covering post-National Service ex-Service personnel in general, while the KCMHR cohort is focused on those who served in the Iraq/Afghanistan era). The primary outcomes of our analyses were the type of socioeconomic change experienced following transition to civilian life, and the socioeconomic classification of their civilian occupation, as categorised by the National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC). Secondly, we ran a focused qualitative investigation (comprising 32 interviews) to help draw a more detailed insight into ex-Service personnel’s subjective experiences of socioeconomic transitioning during and after leaving 2003-2020. The interviews were specifically concerned with our groups of interest including men and 10 women who served as regulars, early leavers and ex-reservists.