Recruiting, Retaining, and Promoting Hispanic Servicemembers

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 calculates Hispanic representation rates at accession and compares them to the civilian benchmark for the enlisted and officer populations. We also perform cohort analysis to compare the retention and promotion rates of Hispanics versus non-Hispanic servicemembers. Next, we explore the career challenges that Hispanics face in military recruiting, retention, and promotion and initiatives that the Department of Defense and the individual services have implemented to address those challenges. We review policy documents and peer-reviewed literature and hold subject matter expert discussions on Hispanic representation in the workforce, barriers they face, programs and initiatives implemented to grow Hispanic representation, and evaluations of their effectiveness. We find that few of the programs designed to address Hispanic representation gaps have been formally evaluated.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2023
Accession Number
AD1227238

Entities

People

  • Daniel Leeds
  • Eduardo Gamarra
  • Elizabeth Clelan
  • Jeffery Tobin
  • Kevin Ng
  • Lauren Malone

Organizations

  • Center for Naval Analyses

Tags

Readers

  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Naval Personnel Management