In order to grasp the content and context of research on enlistment motivations from both macro and micro perspectives, and to promote new and higher-level breakthroughs in this field, this study combines quantitative and qualitative methods. Using Citespace for visual analysis and Nvivo for text analysis, the study conducts an in-depth examination of the literature on “enlistment motivation” indexed in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The research findings show that the number of publications on enlistment motivations has been relatively low overall since the beginning, but has shown a wave-like increase in recent years and is expected to continue to develop in the future. College students have become the most focused group in military recruitment, while policies have become a significant driving factor. The issue of impure enlistment motivations among soldiers has become increasingly prominent. Over the entire time span, enlistment motivations are ranked in terms of importance as follows: “employment development,” “self-improvement,” “serving the country,” “sustained development in the military,” and “economic factors,” with slight variations in different periods.