The effect of mobilization on retention of enlisted reservists after Operation Desert Shield/Storm

This report discusses how reserve mobilizations affect the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of reservists, their families, and their employers. Understanding the effects of mobilizations and deployments is important because of the potential effects on retention, future recruiting, and the eventual reshaping of the reserve force in perhaps unforeseen ways. Using the 1991 Guard/Reserve Survey of Officers and Enlisted Personnel, the authors examine whether and how factors affecting reenlistment have changed since 1986--the last large-scale survey of reserve forces; examine the differences in behavior of mobilized and nonmobilized reservists to determine whether mobilization itself has had an effect on retention; and investigate whether mobilizations affected reservists' work, family environments, and economic positions.