Impact of Eligibility Requirements and Propensity to Serve on Demographic Representation in the Department of the Air Force
Abstract
The U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) has been working for sometime to improve the representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities in its ranks and officer corps so that the DAF reflects the nation that it serves. RAND Corporation research suggests that benchmarking DAF accessions against the general U.S. population lacks important context because it compares DAF demographics to a general population that includes large numbers of people who are neither eligible to serve nor attracted to military service. In addition, RAND research demonstrates that representation of women from a particular racial or ethnic group in the DAF might differ from that of men from the same group relative to a population benchmark; similarly, representation compared with benchmarks within one gender may differ across race and ethnicity. Comparisons with a population benchmark by gender or by race and ethnicity alone mask such differences. This brief summarizes RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) research on a process that provides more-relevant benchmarks for assessing DAF demographics and that accurately reflects important gender and racial and ethnic differences.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1214823
Entities
Organizations
- RAND Corporation