Hispanic Representation in the Military and Civilian Sectors: Lessons Learned and Recommendations from the Literature
Abstract
The federal government has expressed concern in recent years about Hispanic representation in the Armed Forces, particularly in the senior ranks. The fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act calls for an analysis of Hispanic representation in the Services and a comparison of how each Service recruits, retains, and promotes its Hispanic Servicemembers. In response to this requirement, our study aims to identify barriers to growing a more ethnically diverse force. In this report, we review policy documents and peer-reviewed literature on Hispanic representation in the workforce, programs and initiatives implemented to grow Hispanic representation, and evaluations of their effectiveness. Recommendations include addressing parental language gaps and misunderstandings, advertising military Service as a path to citizenship, providing unconscious bias training, and implementing promotion standards that are agnostic to occupation. However, few of the proposed programs have been formally evaluated. The forthcoming phases of our study will include analysis to fill some of these gaps.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1227237
Entities
People
- Jeff Tobin
- Kevin Ng
- Lauren Malone
Organizations
- Center for Naval Analyses