How should interest for carrying out military service impact the selection process?

In Norway, we have universal conscription. Out of 60,000 people in a cohort, the Armed Forces need approximately 8,000 to complete their compulsory military service. It is the Armed Forces who, through a selection process, decide who will carry out the service. The selection process has two parts. The first part is an online form that all 17-year olds have to complete, in which they answer questions about their health, physical fitness, interests and wishes. A selection of the candidates then have to attend the second part, sesjon, based on the answers they give. In order to ensure operability and efficient running of the Armed Forces, it is important that the selection process identify people who have a high probability of completing their compulsory military service. The selection process is also important for the individuals who have to serve, and for good management of the social resource that a cohort of young adults is. This report describes an assignment given to FFI by Forsvarets personell- og vernepliktssenter (FVPS). Our main goal has been to investigate how the interest for doing compulsory military service among 17-year olds at the time of completing the initial form, relates to the probability of completing the service. We have also investigated whether the interest for doing compulsory military service should be a more important selection criterion than it is today. We base our analysis on data from the selection process and service in the Armed Forces. For the cohorts 1997, 1998, and 1999 we found that the interest for doing compulsory military service affects the probability of completing the service. About 70 percent of those who wanted to carry out the service also completed it. About 60 percent of those who were not sure about carrying out the service completed the service. Among those who did not want to carry out the service, only 50 percent completed it. If the goal is to have more people complete the service, our recommendation is that the interest for carrying out the service should be a more important selection criterion than it is today. We have investigated how changing the importance of this criterion would affect the selection process for the 2003 cohort. We found that by giving interest in doing service more weight, many women who are not interested in military service would not be selected, while many men who are interested would be selected. If a certain share of women must be maintained, women who are not interested in carrying out the service, will be selected over people who are interested. The consequence is that more people that have a lower probability of actually completing the service will be selected. Giving interest for doing service more weight also means that people selected will be in worse physical shape. School and social skills will not be affected. However, even those in the worst physical shape among those who are interested in doing military service, have a larger probability of completing the service than those who are not interested.