Over the last two decades, the number of women Veterans in the U.S has grown considerably. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs projects that in the next two decades women Veterans will comprise 15 percent of all living Veterans up from their current level of 8 percent. In 2012, the unemployment rate of women Veterans was relatively high at 8.3 percent.

This paper will help us understand the labor force conditions of women veterans so that we can develop programs and policies that will provide meaningful assistance to them. It provides a profile of women veterans’ demographic and employment characteristics and compares them to those of male veterans, women non-veterans, and male non-veterans. We use the American Community Survey’s 3-year data from 2009-2011 and the Current Population Survey’s August veteran supplement from 2009-2012. We analyze and compare women veterans using several demographic characteristics such as age, education, race, ethnicity, marital status, etc. and employment characteristics, such as their labor force status, type of employment, occupation, and industry. In addition, we also study attributes specific to veterans, such as service-related disability, whether served in combat zone, duration of service, branch of service, etc. We extend our descriptive analysis to multivariate logistic and pooled OLS models by measuring the effects of demographic, geographic, Veteran, and spousal attributes on labor market outcomes, such as the likelihood of employment, type of employment, work schedule, and earnings.