ABSTRACT
The trends of decreased personnel manning and requirements for high levels of operational readiness mean that the job performance of every member must be maintained at a high level. With family life satisfaction known to be related to this problem, it is essential that the military system better understand the family pattern preferences of its members. Consequently, the subject of marriage is considerably more sensitive for women than for men in the Air Force, and in all likelihood, a continuing higher proportion of women will remain single during their military career. Apparently, these dual-career couples felt that the Air Force community provided adequate support to allow either the father or the mother to serve as the temporary, primary parent of the children. In the late 1970s, nine out of every ten single parents in the United States were women, but in the Air Force, three out of four single parents were men.
