Leaders of large organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense are seeking to improve the diversity of their workforces, and to implement inclusive practices in their workplace. Demographic diversity is only one aspect. Leaders want their workforces to reflect the racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, ideological, and generational makeup of society. But successful organizations are adopting a broader definition of diversity that includes differences in experience, skills, and educational background. Leaders have made improving diversity a strategic goal, reasoning that a broader range of skills and talent will improve the organization's overall performance.
RAND has examined workforce diversity and inclusive employment practices for the Department of Defense, as well as for the Department of Homeland Security. RAND is known for its association with the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that prevented openly gay and lesbian individuals from serving in the U.S. military. RAND's 2010 report Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy found broad support for the removal of the policy, and few impacts on the readiness of U.S. armed forces; this report is widely thought to have contributed to the repeal of the policy in 2011.
This page collects defense-related RAND publications on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Each report on this list was conducted by one of RAND's four Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs).
This research brief highlights top-line findings from four different projects that have implications for strategies to prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault in the U.S. Army.
Despite the strong representation of Black Americans in the military, there is little research on the impact of military service on Black people. RAND researchers examined the ways that military service might be correlated with the postmilitary experiences of Black Americans and explored several factors that could be meaningful to their well-being, focusing on physical and behavioral health, economic stability, and interpersonal relationships.
In this exploratory report, the authors consider the security clearance process through the lens of racial justice. Some sources suggest that topics and questions covered in the background investigation process may exclude qualified applicants from minoritized racial and ethnic backgrounds. The authors identify areas where systemic factors and bias might contribute to the underrepresentation of Black Americans in the national security workforce.
Based on the premise that investing in hazard risk mitigation will reduce spending on recovery and response, the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program recognizes that equity issues are important in helping communities' mitigation efforts. Researchers identified ways to address these issues while enhancing the accuracy of natural hazard assessment in future BRIC grant decisionmaking, as described in this report.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense began implementing the Back-to-Basics (BtB) initiative — the most significant change to the defense acquisition workforce (AW) management infrastructure since its inception in the early 1990s. In this report, the researchers provide a characterization of the pre-BtB AW as of the end of fiscal year 2021, changes to the AW over time, and recent cohorts of civilian AW personnel and discuss implications of BtB.
Researchers explore the literature on race and ethnicity (R/E) in relation to U.S. military service member well-being in the areas of mental health, behavioral health, family violence, marital satisfaction, and financial stress to uncover whether past research has focused on R/E differences in outcomes as a driving research question; the variables used to capture R/E; and the quality of research in terms of design, data, and analysis.
Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely than men to report mental health problems, including symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Women also experience much higher rates of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and sexual assault than men. This report examines how experiences of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and sexual assault among military service members relate to differences in health.
Testimony presented before the Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery and Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability on January 20, 2022.
Document submitted March 3, 2022, as an addendum to testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery and Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability on January 20, 2022.
This report presents results of a follow-up survey of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees on workplace harassment and discrimination, employee reporting experiences, and workplace climate. About one in five employees experienced at least one gender-based/sexual or race/ethnicity–based civil rights violation in the year preceding the survey, a substantial decline from 2019 levels.
The Department of the Air Force (DAF) is committed to helping its members thrive by enhancing well-being and eliminating such harmful behaviors as sexual harassment, sexual assault, racial/ethnic harassment and discrimination, hazing, bullying, and domestic abuse. The authors describe and apply a conceptual model of prevention to harmful interpersonal behaviors in the DAF.
Researchers illustrate the ways in which small effects of racial bias can compound over lifetimes. Users of the tool can adjust the amount of racial bias to see its effects on educational achievement, income growth, and wealth accumulation. Even ostensibly small amounts of bias can compound to create significant differences in outcomes in these metrics over time.
Across multiple sectors, leaders are striving to ensure that their workforces represent the communities that they serve and seeking to intentionally integrate individual differences into organizational functions and decisions. This document highlights RAND Corporation research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that may be applicable to Department of the Air Force (DAF) DEI efforts.
The Department of the Air Force (DAF) promulgates directives, memorandums of instructions, and other guidance embracing the importance of diversity. Although demographic data have been masked for most boards making decisions about career development and promotions, the 2021 Central Professional Military Education Program Boards provided an opportunity to test the effects of unmasking the data.
The U.S. Army is introducing a new fitness test for the first time in more than 40 years. The six-event Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) is designed to (1) ensure soldiers are ready to perform combat tasks, (2) reduce preventable injuries, and (3) promote a culture of fitness throughout the Army. In this report, the authors conduct a review of the ACFT and provide recommendations to support the Army's implementation decisions.
Disparities in military career success and representation of women and minority groups persist despite attempts to rectify those disparities. The Military Demographic Equity Support Tool, a decision support tool based on the Bayesian network method, was created to support visualization of up-to-date racial, ethnic, and gender disparities across paygrades and examination of the effects of potential mitigation strategies.
On January 30, 2021, the Secretary of Defense halted all the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) external advisory boards and committees. RAND Corporation authors embarked on this exploratory study to reveal lessons learned for how DoD can improve its advisory boards. The authors conducted 16 interviews with current and former DoD officials to learn what worked well, what could be enhanced or dispensed with, and how boards might be reconfigured.
In this webinar, senior social scientist Melissa Finucane reviews the complex nature of social equity—including contextual, procedural, and distributional equity dimensions—and how a robust, evidence-based approach is needed to measure progress toward equity in disaster contexts. Challenges in identifying underserved groups and selecting appropriate equity metrics are discussed in the context of current policy initiatives to advance racial equity.
The authors describe the behavioral health of racial/ethnic minority, women, and sexual-minority service members relative to their majority-group peers and examine minority–majority group differences in the military versus civilian populations. Understanding whether minority-group service members experience differences in behavioral health can help the U.S. Department of Defense target its efforts to improve force readiness.
This research brief highlights top-line findings from two projects that have implications for strategies to prevent sexual harassment and sexual assault in the U.S. Army.
The authors discuss recent statistics for sexual assault and sexual harassment within the Department of Defense (DoD) and summarize the policies and steps that DoD has taken to address these problem behaviors. Official reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment within DoD have significantly increased. Although DoD has taken steps to address this, the authors recommend multiple activities to improve DoD's prevention and response activities.
Undergraduate schools with strong aerospace and cyber programs offer the Department of the Air Force (DAF) opportunities to reach high-quality diverse students who have the skills to become successful officers. This Perspective presents conceptual design considerations for implementing a feeder system as an enhanced marketing and outreach program to assist the DAF with increasing racial and ethnic diversity in officer accessions.
The authors discuss the scholarly literature on the efficacy of blinding strategies (concepts and practices that seek to downplay or ignore gender, racial, and ethnic differences and to unify people under common goals and values), how these insights apply to Department of the Air Force (DAF) goals, and steps the DAF should take to better advance its goal of a more equitable and inclusive workforce.
Bias in law enforcement systems that use machine learning can cause or exacerbate inequity. This Perspective describes ways the U.S. Department of Homeland Security can prevent or reduce, identify, and address such bias at various points in the process of acquiring these systems.
Researchers sought to identify the root causes of underrepresentation for women and members of racial/ethnic minority groups in the U.S. Coast Guard; factors shaping representation at each phase of the career life cycle; and facilitators of and barriers to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Researchers extended previous RAND analyses that produced estimates of sexual assault risk and sexual harassment risk across installations and commands. The results of these extended analyses showed considerable variation in the risk of sexual assault and sexual harassment across groups of soldiers, primarily among Army women—at installations, commands, and in career fields—and identified characteristics of groups in which risk level was higher.
This Perspective summarizes organizational, managerial, and procedural insights that RAND Project AIR FORCE has provided to Department of the Air Force (DAF) leaders in recent years on critical diversity and personnel challenges facing the department. Also, it highlights areas of new focus that DAF leaders might want to consider as they develop and hone diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, practices, and procedures to meet pressing demands.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency have committed to reduce social inequities but lack frameworks, indicators, and metrics for tracking progress. In this report, researchers describe the results of a literature review, the key themes related to conceptual frameworks, and indicators and metrics. They also identify knowledge gaps and provide recommendations for assessing racial equity in these programs.
This research summarizes estimates of sexual assault risk and sexual harassment risk across U.S. Army installations and command, showing variation in these risks across groups of soldiers.
The authors of this report estimate the proportion of all sexually assaulted military service members who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, or who do not indicate they identify as heterosexual. They find that although this group makes up only 12 percent of the active duty population, it accounted for approximately 43 percent of all sexually assaulted service members in 2018.
This report describes the most common types of behaviors that occur during active-component soldiers' most serious sexual harassment and gender discrimination experiences, characteristics of (alleged) perpetrators, most common times and places in which these events occur, and differences between high-risk and non–high-risk installations.
Testimony presented before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on March 26, 2021.
To help the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) estimate the percentage of service members who experienced racial or ethnic harassment or discrimination in the past year, RAND Corporation researchers, with feedback from external experts and DoD representatives, developed a survey instrument. The authors of this report describe the instrument-development process, the instrument itself, and recommendations to support its use.
In this synthesis of research from more than 30 RAND Corporation reports on talent management of defense knowledge workers, the author presents areas for improvement, ways for the department to proactively approach talent management, and opportunities for future research. Insights are organized along four pillars of talent management: build and organize, train and develop, motivate and manage performance, and promote and retain the right talent.
This study is the first to examine disaster risk creation from an organizational perspective, and the first to focus explicitly on how disaster management agencies can shape risk creation.
Face recognition technologies (FRTs) have many practical security-related purposes, but advocacy groups and individuals have expressed apprehensions about their use. This report highlights the high-level privacy and bias implications of FRT systems. The authors propose a heuristic with two dimensions — consent status and comparison type — to help determine a proposed FRT's level of privacy and accuracy. They also identify privacy and bias concerns.
This brief summarizes findings and recommendations from a study of the prevalence and characteristics of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, racial/ethnic harassment, and racial/ethnic discrimination at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Researchers assessed the prevalence and characteristics of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, racial/ethnic harassment, and racial/ethnic discrimination at FEMA. They surveyed FEMA employees about these civil rights violations and about workplace climate. This report documents the survey results.
RAND has developed a new version of a Department of Defense survey used to estimate the prevalence of sexual harassment in the military. In this short version of the sexual harassment measure, the authors document a five-question sexual harassment measure that reliably predicts scores on the longer instrument. The five-item sexual harassment measure seems to be appropriate for use in military organizational climate surveys.
This report documents the results of a study designed to identify the root causes of female attrition in the active-duty Coast Guard. The study analyzed trends in retention data and conducted focus groups with over 1,100 active-duty Coast Guard members. The report describes key retention factors identified through these analyses and provides recommendations for addressing identified barriers to Coast Guard female retention.
This report provides recommendations for how the Air Force's survey system for monitoring abuse and misconduct in Basic Military Training can best be adapted for use in technical training and flying training environments. The report also provides background on the training environments, revisions to tailor the survey content for these environments, survey pretest results, strategies to promote participation, and recommendations for future use.
For active-duty women, many complex factors influence the decision to stay in or separate from the Coast Guard. This brief summarizes research on these factors and makes recommendations for improving female retention in the Coast Guard.
This report documents the results of a qualitative study designed to better understand the factors that female Air Force officers consider when deciding whether to remain in the active duty Air Force. It describes the key retention factors identified through focus groups and provides recommendations for improving Air Force policies and programs to help address potential barriers and improve female officer retention.
The number of programs dedicated to countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown in recent years, but a lack of understanding persists regarding the effectiveness of such programs — particularly those conducted online. This report reviews prior assessments of online CVE campaigns; offers recommendations for future assessments; and provides a case study of one particular CVE campaign, the Redirect Method.
This report explores ways for the U.S. Air Force to increase gender-integrated training (GIT) in Basic Military Training. The report includes five options to increase GIT, along with a comparative analysis of these options and an implementation monitoring framework.
This report examines what the career of a "typical" Army civilian looks like. Using a statistical clustering technique to group career trajectories together by length of service, promotion frequency and timing, and transfers between the Army and other Department of Defense components, the researchers identified common career patterns among individuals who entered the Army civilian workforce between 1981 and 2000 as General Schedule employees.
This report (Volume 2) provides the results of RAND researchers' work reviewing and evaluating the U.S. military services' methodologies for setting gender-neutral physical standards for combat occupations (occupations that were previously closed to women), using the best-practice methodology described in Volume 1 of this report as a framework for evaluating the services' efforts.
In 2013, the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) announced that the last policy restricting the military service of women, the direct ground combat exclusion rule, would end. The SecDef also directed the services to validate occupational standards and ensure they are gender neutral. This report identifies the best-practice methodologies for establishing valid, gender-neutral standards for physically demanding military jobs.
The Air Force uses the Strength Aptitude Test (SAT) to determine whether recruits meet the fitness levels needed to perform the duties of various Air Force specialties with physical strength requirements. However, these duties may have changed since the SAT was developed. This report evaluates the SAT and related fitness tests to identify strategies for ensuring airmen can meet job-related physical requirements.
Although a representative workforce is a strategic priority in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), certain demographic groups have historically been underrepresented and may continue to face employment barriers. To address this problem, RAND researchers identified employment barriers that persons with targeted disabilities (PWTD) may experience and recommended actions DoD can take to increase employment of PWTD in its civilian workforce.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an assessment of the rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. This volume presents survey estimates of how risk of sexual assault and sexual harassment varies across military installations and major commands using data from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an assessment of the rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. This Annex to Volume 5 contains detailed tabular results for risk of sexual assault and sexual harassment across military installations and major commands using data from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study.
This report looks at demographic differences in U.S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training completion. It presents potential challenges that women and racial and ethnic minorities might face in entering and completing the training, as well as demographic differences in attrition rates, reasons for attrition, and an analysis of whether certain individual characteristics account for differential rates of attrition.
Summarizes results of research into representation of Hispanic people and people with targeted disabilities among the Department of Defense civilian workforce.
Demographic differences between the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the civilian workforces prompted a formal analysis of workforce differences in and potential barriers to representation of women in the DoD workforce. This report represents an exploratory effort examining the relatively low level of women's representation and testing the utility of alternative methods in better understanding workforce dynamics.
This report uses a review of organizational culture literature to help address the U.S. Army's organizational challenges, such as behavioral health treatment stigma, negative workplace behaviors, and participation of women in combat. Researchers identified key drivers of cultural change, and a group of subject matter experts analyzed the results of the literature review by identifying the most important drivers of cultural change for the Army.
This report helps inform strategies to recruit women through the results of focus groups with recent recruits and recruiters. We recommend that resources be set aside to specifically target outreach to women, that the services increase the proportion of recruiters who are women and increase their visibility at recruiting events, and that the services work to reduce administrative burdens on recruiters and recruits.
The U.S. Department of Defense is considering a change in policy to allow transgender military personnel to serve openly. A RAND study examined the health care needs of transgender personnel, the costs of gender transition–related care, and the potential readiness implications of a policy change. The experiences of foreign militaries that permit transgender service members to serve openly also point to some best practices for U.S. policymakers.
Integrating women into special operations forces poses potential challenges for unit cohesion. The integration of women raises issues of effectiveness, in terms of physical standards and ensuring the readiness, cohesion, and morale essential to high-performing teams. This report assesses those challenges and provides analytical support for validating occupational standards for positions controlled by U.S. Special Operations Command.
To inform a potential change in policy, a RAND study examined the health care needs of transgender military personnel, costs of gender transition–related care and potential readiness implications of allowing transgender personnel to serve openly.
This research brief describes the methodological review of sources of potential bias in the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study, an independent assessment of the rates of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the U.S. military,
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to independently assess rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the military. This volume presents the results of methodological investigations into sources of potential bias in estimates produced from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study for active- and reserve-component members in the U.S. military.
This study for the U.S. Marine Corps presents a historical overview of the integration of women into the U.S. military and explores the importance of cohesion and what influences it. The gender integration experiences of foreign militaries, as well as the gender integration efforts of domestic police and fire departments, are analyzed for insights into effective policies. The potential costs of integration are analyzed as well.
The Marine Corps Combat Development Command asked RAND to study the integration of women into infantry combat roles. Researchers reviewed the literature, conducted interviews, estimated costs, and developed an approach for monitoring integration.
This brief presents major conclusions for Department of Defense service members from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study, an independent assessment of the rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military.
In this presentation, RAND co-project leader Kristie L. Gore presents an overview of the final findings from the RAND Military Workplace Study, which included a survey of 560,000 U.S. service members fielded in August and September of 2014.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. The Coast Guard also requested inclusion of its members. This Annex to Volume 3 contains detailed tabular results from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study for the U.S. Coast Guard active component.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of the rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. This volume presents survey results from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study for active- and reserve-component service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of the rates of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. This Annex to Volume 2 contains detailed tabular results for the DoD active component from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the U.S. military. The Coast Guard also requested inclusion of its members. This volume presents survey results from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study for the U.S. Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve.
Despite the Air Force's efforts to create a force that mirrors the racial, ethnic, and gender differences of the nation's population, minority groups and women are underrepresented in the active-duty line officer population, especially at senior levels (i.e., colonel and above). This report examines the reasons for this, with the goal of identifying potential policy responses.
In early 2014, the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the military. This video presents initial top-line estimates from the 2014 RAND Military Workplace Study, an independent assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the military.
Coast Guard active duty and reserve members were surveyed as part of an independent RAND assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the military. This report provides initial top-line active-duty Coast Guard estimates from the resulting RAND Military Workplace Study, which invited close to 560,000 service members to participate in a survey fielded in August and September of 2014.
The Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the US military. This volume documents the methodology used in the resulting RAND Military Workplace Study, which invited close to 560,000 service members to participate in a survey fielded in August and September of 2014.
In early 2014, the Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office asked the RAND Corporation to conduct an independent assessment of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in the military. This report provides preliminary top-line estimates from the resulting RAND Military Workplace Study, which invited close to 560,000 service members to participate in a survey fielded in August and September of 2014.
The passage of immigration enforcement laws, traditionally the purview of the federal government, by Arizona and other states raises the concern that state and local law enforcement agencies may engage in racial profiling when enforcing immigration laws. This paper describes several approaches for detecting racial profiling by police and calls for their use in monitoring the implementation of state and local immigration enforcement laws.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 mandated a review of gender-based assignment restrictions. To support this effort, RAND researchers analyzed service data to describe and quantify the military occupations that are closed to women, as well as occupations that are open with some positions that are closed.
Integration of women has had a small effect on readiness, cohesion, and morale — leadership, training, and the unit workload are perceived as having a far more profound influence.
Gender integration has had only small effects on the matters that count most: defense readiness, unit cohesion, and morale.