Unemployment and Military Labour Supply: A Study on Belgian Data for the Period 2005-2020

The Belgian military has been an all-voluntary force since the suspension of the conscription (1994). Characterised by a high average age and confronted with large outflows of personnel due to retirement, the Belgian armed forces are forced to substantially increase their recruitment efforts. Belgium is not only a country with a small military but it also has a very specific labour market for which policy is a responsibility of the three regions. Not only does policy differ between the different regions but so does the unemployment rate with clear differences between the north and the south of the country. This makes the country a unique case study to examine the effects of unemployment across the different regions. We therefore estimate the determinants of military labour supply by means of a mixed-level model, capturing the impact of unemployment on the application rate at the regional level. Our study confirms earlier findings in the literature, showing that changes in unemployment have an important impact on the number of candidates for joining the military. Our study does, however, not reveal a clear-cut North–South distinction (in line with the strong discrepancies between the Northern and Southern provinces), indicating the importance of other explanatory variables.