Wehr- und Zivildienst in Deutschland: Wer dient, wer nicht? / Basic Militaiy and Alternative Service in Germany: Who Serves, Who Doesn't?

Schneider Thorsten ()
Additional contact information
Schneider Thorsten: DIW Berlin, Königin-Luise-Straße 5, D-14195 Berlin. Tel.: ++49/+30/89 78 93 76, Fax: ++49/+30/89 78 91 09

Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), 2003, vol. 223, issue 5, 603-622

Abstract: This paper conceptualises military service and alternative service as a tax. Thus making it possible to evaluate the practice of conscription for basic military or alternative service using the criterions of tax equity. In Germany due to various factors such as disabilities or lack of placements, only 40 to 70 % of a male birth cohort have completed one or the other service, giving a substantial portion of the population a number of advantages. In contrast to many countries, conscientious objection has become common and relatively easy in Germany in the last two decades, making it necessary to take into consideration both types of service in issues of fairness. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for testing individual and macro structural fac tors as determinants of serving. We found especially strong effects arising from birth cohort size, increases in conscientious objection and differences in educational level. Persons with a general qualification for a university entrance have a much higher probability of serving compared with persons with a lower degree in the youngest cohorts. Interestingly, this was not the case throughout time.

Keywords: Conscription equity; tax equity; conscientious objection; discrete event history analysis; Wehrgerechtigkeit; Steuergerechtigkeit; Kriegsdienstverweigerung; diskrete Ereignisanalyse; Zivildienst; Conscription equity; tax equity; conscientious objection; discrete event history analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2003-0507 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jns:jbstat:v:223:y:2003:i:5:p:603-622

DOI: 10.1515/jbnst-2003-0507

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik) is currently edited by Peter Winker

More articles in Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik) from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().