• DOI:10.7249/RR1288
• Corpus ID: 157672629

Can We Explain Gender Differences in Officer Career Progression

@inproceedings{Asch2016CanWE,
  title={Can We Explain Gender Differences in Officer Career Progression},
  author={Beth J. Asch and Trey Miller and Gabriel Weinberger},
  year={2016}
}

• Beth J. Asch, Trey Miller, Gabriel Weinberger
• Published 12 October 2016
• Political Science

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Preface In 2011, the congressionally mandated Military Leadership Diversity Commission (MLDC) concluded that two factors contributed to the underrepresentation among senior military leaders of racial and ethnic minority and female officers: lower rates of promotion than white male officers and, in the case of midlevel female officers, lower retention. Left unclear is the relative contribution of each. That is, to what extent is the lack of representation mostly because of lower retention, lower promotion rates, or both? The MLDC relied, in part, on the results of an earlier RAND study that tracked the retention and promotion of officers, using data on officer cohorts entering between 1967 and 1991 and tracking them through 1994. Because the results of this earlier study are dated, the Office of the Secretary of Defense asked RAND to update the study, using more-recent data. The Office of the Secretary of Defense also requested that RAND provide information on what explains gender differences in the officer career pipeline. The updated analysis was conducted in the first phase of our research, summarized in Beth Asch, Trey Miller, and Alessandro Malchiodi, A New Look at Gender and Minority Differences in Officer Career Progression in the Military (2012). The second phase of the research is summarized in this report and addresses the question of what explains gender differences in the officer career pipeline. The analysis should be of interest to the policy community concerned about the career progression of minority and female officers and the military manpower research community. Summary An ongoing concern of personnel managers in the Department of Defense (DoD) is the lack of diversity among senior …