My understanding is that there are a bunch of charitable efforts to try to convince employers to hire veterans, and that it’s illegal in the US to discriminate against veterans in employment. If military veterans were actually more productive, I don’t think these charities or anti-discrimination laws would exist.
I’m not sure that follows. For many jobs, we know that people in their mid 30s are generally more productive than people who are in early career, for example. But there are still anti-discrimination laws against not hiring old people. Point being that while some of X might be good, too much of X could be bad. This could tie into Ryan’s point above that while there could be some average productivity benefits, for exceptional cases,
I expect that the veterans who fail to re-adapt to civilian life suffer an almost complete collapse of productivity.
[ETA: Also, wouldn’t you expect there to be charities for some interest group even if they were better off on average? Especially if they held a revered role within society.]
It doesn’t strictly follow, but I think it’s pretty good evidence considering how easy it is to come by.
For many jobs, we know that people in their mid 30s are generally more productive than people who are in early career, for example. But there are still anti-discrimination laws against not hiring old people.
I wouldn’t consider mid-30s to be old, and my guess is that those laws are protecting people at least 40 years old—although I guess the general point holds that ‘you can’t discriminate based on variable X’ doesn’t tell you which values would be discriminated against, maybe the point of these laws is to protect non-veterans.
Re: charities, the relevant fact is that they’re charities specifically for employment opportunities for this group. You don’t see charities to help e.g. ex-firefighters to be employed.
I wouldn’t consider mid-30s to be old, and my guess is that those laws are protecting people at least 40 years old
To be clear, that was exactly my point. The laws themselves just specify that you can’t discriminate based on age. It is possible that many veterans receive a benefit to self-discipline during their service, but the laws still exist because other veterans do not have that benefit—similar to how some older people are actually more hirable even if there’s another group who isn’t.
Oh, I assumed that your post was about the average effect of military training, not whether any subgroup at all benefits, since the average effect seems more relevant.
Both could be relevant. It could be that a subgroup that makes up the majority of the military gets benefits, so the median is higher productivity. But due to a small subgroup, the mean is lower. Any result seems interesting here.
[ETA: Don’t you think something like, “People in the Army have lower productivity but people in the Air Force have higher” would be interesting? I just am looking for something that’s relevant to the central question of the post: can training have long-term benefits on self-discipline?]
My understanding is that there are a bunch of charitable efforts to try to convince employers to hire veterans, and that it’s illegal in the US to discriminate against veterans in employment. If military veterans were actually more productive, I don’t think these charities or anti-discrimination laws would exist.
I’m not sure that follows. For many jobs, we know that people in their mid 30s are generally more productive than people who are in early career, for example. But there are still anti-discrimination laws against not hiring old people. Point being that while some of X might be good, too much of X could be bad. This could tie into Ryan’s point above that while there could be some average productivity benefits, for exceptional cases,
[ETA: Also, wouldn’t you expect there to be charities for some interest group even if they were better off on average? Especially if they held a revered role within society.]
It doesn’t strictly follow, but I think it’s pretty good evidence considering how easy it is to come by.
I wouldn’t consider mid-30s to be old, and my guess is that those laws are protecting people at least 40 years old—although I guess the general point holds that ‘you can’t discriminate based on variable X’ doesn’t tell you which values would be discriminated against, maybe the point of these laws is to protect non-veterans.
Re: charities, the relevant fact is that they’re charities specifically for employment opportunities for this group. You don’t see charities to help e.g. ex-firefighters to be employed.
To be clear, that was exactly my point. The laws themselves just specify that you can’t discriminate based on age. It is possible that many veterans receive a benefit to self-discipline during their service, but the laws still exist because other veterans do not have that benefit—similar to how some older people are actually more hirable even if there’s another group who isn’t.
Oh, I assumed that your post was about the average effect of military training, not whether any subgroup at all benefits, since the average effect seems more relevant.
Both could be relevant. It could be that a subgroup that makes up the majority of the military gets benefits, so the median is higher productivity. But due to a small subgroup, the mean is lower. Any result seems interesting here.
[ETA: Don’t you think something like, “People in the Army have lower productivity but people in the Air Force have higher” would be interesting? I just am looking for something that’s relevant to the central question of the post: can training have long-term benefits on self-discipline?]