Inequalities in Well-Being – a Comparison of Empirical Research in the German Armed Forces in 2013, 2016 and 2020

Well-being in working environments may be understood as a state of satisfaction with the overall situation and is strongly related to productivity and health. Especially military service members deal with challenging working conditions every day, such as changing environments and deployments, health risks, frequent moves, and long periods of absence from home. Therefore they can be considered as a vulnerable part of society. In this paper the impact on soldiers’ well-being in the German Armed Forces is measured by the concepts ‘health’, ‘work-life balance’, ‘justice’, and ‘learning’, which may influence well-being. These predictors consist of four items each.

The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent well-being in the German Armed Forces is influenced by these four concepts. By analysing data from a research project on the attractiveness of the German Armed Forces to military personnel in 2013, 2016 and 2020 (with more than 2000 respondents each), it is possible to compare cohorts as well as evaluate effects of interventions (to improve the employer’s attractiveness) on the soldiers’ well-being. Therefore, we interpret the data based on several socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, rank, status, and branch. The explanatory model appears stable over all three points in time. Learning had the strongest impact on the soldiers’ well-being, followed by justice and health. Work-life balance had the lowest impact. All four predictors were highly significant. This shows that to increase (the soldiers’) well-being, a special focus has to be put on improving the potentials of learning and developing oneself.