In the United States, active duty Armed Forces personnel tended to be young, with the majority under the age of 30 years old. In 2023, there were 546,361 U.S. Defense Armed personnel aged 25 and under. In the age group 26 to 30, there were 275,756 Armed Forces personnel.

In 2025, the average age for personnel in the UK Armed Forces overall was 31 years old. The average age of those serving in the British Army was also 31, with the average age rising to 33 for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The average age for officers in the Armed Forces was 37, with this rising to 38 for officers in the Royal Air Force.

This scatter chart displays military expenditure (% of GDP) against median age (year). The data is about regions.

This dataset is about countries per year in the Americas. It has 2,240 rows. It features 4 columns: country, military expenditure, and median age.

This scatter chart displays median age (year) against military expenditure (% of GDP) in Central America. The data is about countries.

When surveyed in February 2020, 11 percent of Russians between 18 and 24 years old stated that they served in the army, which was the lowest share among other generations. The highest share was recorded among respondents aged from 45 to 59 years old, measuring at 40 percent.

Distribution by age group and sex of active military personnel (average strength)

This statistic shows the distribution of military personnel in France in 2013, by age group and gender. According to the French Ministry of Defense, more than 15 per cent of the male personnel were aged 36 to 40, while most of the female personnel were aged 26 to 30.

The Average Age by State dataset provides the average age of Government life insurance policyholders in the administered programs in each state. The data is reported at the state level, plus insureds in Military America, Military Europe, Military Pacific, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

In 2023, 42.14 percent of U.S. men aged 75 years and over were veterans - the highest share of any age group or gender. In comparison, less than one percent of women aged 75 and over were veterans at that time.

In 2025, there were approximately ****** regular personnel in the British Armed Forces aged between 18 and 29, compared with ****** aged between 30 and 49, and ****** aged 50 and over.

In the fiscal year of 2019, 21.39 percent of active-duty enlisted women were of Hispanic origin. The total number of active duty military personnel in 2019 amounted to 1.3 million people.

Ethnicities in the United States The United States is known around the world for the diversity of its population. The Census recognizes six different racial and ethnic categories: White American, Native American and Alaska Native, Asian American, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are classified as a racially diverse ethnicity.

The largest part of the population, about 61.3 percent, is composed of White Americans. The largest minority in the country are Hispanics with a share of 17.8 percent of the population, followed by Black or African Americans with 13.3 percent. Life in the U.S. and ethnicity However, life in the United States seems to be rather different depending on the race or ethnicity that you belong to. For instance: In 2019, native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders had the highest birth rate of 58 per 1,000 women, while the birth rae of white alone, non Hispanic women was 49 children per 1,000 women.

The Black population living in the United States has the highest poverty rate with of all Census races and ethnicities in the United States. About 19.5 percent of the Black population was living with an income lower than the 2020 poverty threshold. The Asian population has the smallest poverty rate in the United States, with about 8.1 percent living in poverty.

The median annual family income in the United States in 2020 earned by Black families was about 57,476 U.S. dollars, while the average family income earned by the Asian population was about 109,448 U.S. dollars. This is more than 25,000 U.S. dollars higher than the U.S. average family income, which was 84,008 U.S. dollars.

This dataset is about regions in the Americas. It has 4 rows. It features 3 columns: military expenditure, and median age.

The age structure of the personnel of the Swedish Armed forces varies between the ranks. Whereas 55 to 59 years was the most common age of commissioned officers in 2021, the most common age of non-commissioned officers was 30 to 34 years. The highest number of personnel of other ranks was between 16 and 24 years.

In 2025, there were around 137,000 regular personnel serving in the British Armed Forces, compared with 138,000 in the previous year. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were two huge spikes in the number of active personnel which represented the final years of World War One and World War Two, numbering 4.58 million and 4.69 million in 1918 and 1945 respectively. Ever since 1945, the size of the regular armed forces has been in almost constant decline, with the noticeable exception of the early 1950s, when the number of active personnel increased by almost 200,000 because of the Korean War. The winds of change There are several reasons why the number of personnel in Britain’s armed forces has declined. Britain is involved in a far fewer conventional military conflicts today than it was in the past. As the size of Britain’s empire declined rapidly after 1945, so too did the UK's global military commitments. There are also more recent developments, such as the UK government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2010, which outlined personnel would be cut throughout the 2010s to modernize the UK’s armed forces. Recent geopolitical events such as the War in Ukraine have, however, led to commitments from the UK government to spend more on defence, and eventually even a reversal of personnel cuts. Branches of the UK military There are three main branches of the UK armed forces, the British Army, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Marines. Of the 181,000 people serving in the UK’s armed forces in 2025, over half of them were in the British Army, which had around 109,000 personnel. The next largest branch was the Royal Navy at 37,900, followed by the RAF at 34,800 personnel. The average age for people serving in the armed forces was 31 in 2024, with the Royal Air Force having a slightly higher average age group than the other branches, at 33.

This scatter chart displays median age (year) against military expenditure (% of GDP) in Egypt. The data is filtered where the date is 2023. The data is about countries per year.

Cube of aggregated data taking up the stock as at 01/01/N of military pensions under direct law, of armed soldiers, liquidated by the Retirement Service of the State.

It provides data on the following topics: Effective, Average Age, Average Monthly Amount, Average Durations, Liquidation Rates, Average Liquidation Index, Decote and Guaranteed Minimum.

With more than 1,500 individual entries, this is the inaugural instalment of my research database collated in the framework of the Project Forgotten Soldiers: Jewish Military Experience in the Habsburg Monarchy. This is an open access database, and everyone is welcome to use it according to their own scholarly and personal interests. In 1,189 cases we have official documented records confirming the soldiers were Jewish. In another 313 entries I was able to identify likely Jewish soldiers based on circumstantial evidence cross-referencing names and places of birth, with the presence of confirmed Jewish soldiers drafted into the same units as part of the same recruitment drive. This dataset further includes evidence for 156 spouses and 47 children. While military records do mentions these, their number suggests that the Habsburg army preferred to enlist unmarried men.

The database is structured in a similar way to an official individual entry in the Habsburg military records. These were arranged in tables, with soldiers listed by seniority. Name, place and land of birth are followed by age and religion. This latter rubric allows identifying the bulk of the Jewish soldiers. Also included in the record is marital status, profession (if any), number, names and ages of children (if any), followed by a short summary text of the soldier’s service itinerary. While not always consistent in detail, these texts mention enlistment dates, transfers between units, promotions, desertions, periods as prisoner of war and military awards (if any). I have taken the material from the personal records and added several additional parameters:

• The soldiers are entered into the database according to their date of enlistment. This is followed by a colour-coded table showing their years of service. To see the meaning of the different colours employed, scroll to the legend at the end of the dataset.
• Following the years of service, we see the date when the soldier left service (final year in service for incomplete service records). When known, the reason the soldier left the army is given (discharge/ death/ desertion etc).
• Then come the three most important columns within the table: service record, primary sources and units. At first glance, these columns have only a few letters and numbers, but bring your mouse courser onto the relevant field marked with red triangles. An additional window will then open:

a. Service Record: Shows the entire service record of the soldier arranged by date. I use original German as it appears in the archival records. If you see spelling differences with modern German – they are there for a reason.

b. Primary Sources: Provides the information on all the archival records consulted to reconstruct the service itinerary. The number in the field denotes the number of the archival cartons consulted.

c. Units: Number of units in which a soldier serves. Bringing the cursor on to the field will open their list. Most Jewish soldiers served in the line infantry (IR) and the Military Transport Corps (MFWK or MFK). However, there were also Jewish sharpshooters, cavalrymen, gunners and even a few members of the nascent Austrian Navy.

• The next two columns provide entries of the soldier’s conduct and medical condition, which in Habsburg military jargon was referred to rather callously as Defekten. I note the original medical diagnoses verbatim. When possible to identify, I note the modern medical term.
• General database-wide parameters are then noted in the next part of the table. Among others, it provides information on enlistment type (conscript/ volunteer?), main branches of service (such as Infantry/ Cavalry/ Artillery), and roles within the military (such as non-commissioned officers/ drummers/ medics).
• Concluding this part of the table are columns covering desertions, periods as prisoner of war and awards of the army cannon cross (for veterans of 1813-14) and other military awards.
• The last column provides the original German outtake rubric as to how the soldier left service. In special cases, additional service notes are provides on the right.

How to use this dataset

This depends on what you are looking for. Firstly, download the dataset on to your computer via the link provided below. It is a simple Excel file which is easy to work with. If you wish to find out whether one of your ancestors served in the Habsburg army, use a simple keyword search. Please note that in our period there was no single accepted orthography meaning that some letters were used interchangeably (for instance B/P; D/T). There were also various patronymic suffices used in different parts of the monarchy (-witz in German/ -wicz in Polish/ -vits in Hungarian). Habsburg military clerks were mostly German speakers who often recorded the name phonetically. For instance, Jankel/ Jankl/ Jacob/ Jacobus all denote the same name. A Jewish teenager who identified himself as Moische when first reporting to duty, may have stayed so in the military records for decades, even if he was already a non-commissioned officer whose subordinates referred to as Herr Corporal.

If you study the history of concrete Jewish communities, use the keyword search and the filter option to find entries in the database where this locality is mentioned. Some places like Prague and Lublin could be identified effortlessly. In other cases (and see the above point on German-speaking clerks), place names were recorded phonetically. The military authority usually stuck to official Polish names in Galicia, and Hungarian in the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephan. In reality, a Jewish recruit from Transcarpathian Ruthenia could have his place of birth recorded in Hungarian, Romanian or Rusin. When I could not identify the place in question, I marked it with italics. Do you think you identified something I could not? Excellent! Then please write me, and I will correct the entry in the next instalment of this database.

I should stress that, currently, the database is not statistically representative. I have worked chronologically, meaning that there are disproportionally more entries for Jewish soldiers from the Turkish War, the first two Coalition Wars, and the Wars of 1805 and 1809. If you look at some of my other databases (for instance, that of the 1st Line Infantry Regiment 'Kaiser'), you will find least as many Jews who served in the wars of 1813-15. I will cover these in due course. This said, using the filter option of the Excel sheet, you can already make some individual queries. For instance, did Jewish grenadiers meet the minimal height requirement to be eligible for transfer into the elite infantry? (Hint: they did not!) If you are interested in the historical study of nutritional standards, compare the height of the soldiers with their year and place of birth. In my other project, I made calculations of the average height of Habsburg soldiers and I can already reveal that Jewish conscripts were, on average, several centimetres smaller than their non-Jewish comrades drafted in the same annual intake. Whatever stereotypes said, most Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy around 1800 were very poor and the sad fact of malnutrition as a child is reflected in their height as adults.

I should stress that this is a cumulative database. ZENODO has an excellent feature allowing updated versions to supersede earlier files while retaining the same DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and metadata. As my research progresses, I plan to upload new versions of this database bi-annually. This includes not only adding new entries, but also expanding and correcting existing ones. It might well be that the service record of a soldier covered up to 1806 will be brought to a later date, possibly even to his discharge from the army. If you have not found whom you are looking for, or if you want to work with larger samples for your research, visit this page again in a few months’ time. And if you do use this database for scholarly research (by all means, please do), do not forget to cite it as you would cite any other item in your bibliography! If you are a museum professional and you want to employ material from your database to illustrate your exhibitions, you are welcome, but please cite this resource for others to learn. Links to this database will also be appreciated.

Characteristics of individuals who left the UKAF and who had contact with mental health services in the 12 months prior to suicide and matched controls who had not served in the UKAF.

During the Second World War, the three Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Finland mobilized the largest share of their male population. For the Allies, the Soviet Union mobilized the largest share of men, as well as the largest total army of any country, but it was restricted in its ability to mobilize more due to the impact this would have on its economy. Other notable statistics come from the British Empire, where a larger share of men were drafted from Dominions than from the metropole, and there is also a discrepancy between the share of the black and white populations from South Africa.

However, it should be noted that there were many external factors from the war that influenced these figures. For example, gender ratios among the adult populations of many European countries was already skewed due to previous conflicts of the 20th century (namely WWI and the Russian Revolution), whereas the share of the male population eligible to fight in many Asian and African countries was lower than more demographically developed societies, as high child mortality rates meant that the average age of the population was much lower.