News Release
U.S. Military Drawdown Could Affect Gains in Service Member Diversity
Oct 26, 2015
In January 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced plans for a large-scale reduction — or drawdown — of its military force, which could have unintended consequences for demographic diversity. The Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity (ODMEO) in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) asked RAND to analyze how force reductions could affect the demographic diversity of the DoD workforce.
Investigating the Impact of Force Reductions on the Demographic Diversity of the U.S. Military
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In January 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced plans for a large-scale reduction — or drawdown — of its military force. The last drawdown to affect all four DoD services occurred in the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War. During that period, the military shrank by almost 37 percent, from about 2.17 million in FY 1987 to 1.37 million by FY 2000. Despite having a variety of goals and strategies for the 1990s and mid-2000s drawdowns, the services had few, if any, explicit diversity goals or strategies related to the drawdowns. Based on our discussions with force management experts, demographic diversity is also not part of their recent drawdown goals and strategies. However, the drawdown could have unintended consequences for demographic diversity even when diversity is not part of drawdown decisionmaking. To address the issue of unintended consequences of drawdowns on diversity, the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity (ODMEO) in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) asked RAND to analyze how force reductions could affect the demographic diversity of the DoD workforce. Our study focuses on gender and race/ethnicity, although we include other individual differences, such as education, in some analyses.
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Active-Duty Drawdown in the 1990s
Chapter Three
Navy and Air Force Active-Duty Drawdowns in the Mid-2000s
Chapter Four
Law, Policy, and Plans for Recent Active-Duty Drawdowns
Chapter Five
Potential Impact of Recent Drawdowns on Demographic Diversity in Active-Duty Force
Chapter Six
Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendix A
Reserve Component Drawdowns
Appendix B
Civilian Drawdowns
Appendix C
Methodology and Additional Results for Chapters Two to Four
Appendix D
Overview of Tools Available for Recent Drawdown
This research was sponsored by the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity (ODMEO) in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.
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