Marine Corps Program
Analyses of the Marine Corps Officer Manpower System: Final Report
The study examines the manpower system for unrestricted officers, documenting the degree to which officer inventories did not match requirements and identifying options for addressing shortfalls.
The authors examine the FY92-FY05 period to identify systematic shortages by primary military occupational specialty (PMOS) and analyze promotion rates by PMOS to see if promotion rates differ.
Compensation and Voluntary Participation in a Continuum of Service
The Department of Defense (DoD) is considering ways to increase voluntary participation in the Reserves. One such proposal, the Continuum of Service (CoS), recognizes that people differ in their willingness and ability to accept activation and deployment. DoD asked CNAC researchers to examine potential changes to the compensation system that would support voluntary participation in a CoS.
Researchers concluded that policy-makers can use compensation tools to effectively implement a CoS, but that across-the-board compensation changes would not encourage participation. They also found no evidence to support the idea that implementing a CoS, or increasing compensation to support a CoS, would significantly increase reserve retention. Researchers say a cost-effective CoS will rely on targeted compensation.
Marine Corps Deployment and Retention in FY05
CNAC researchers analyzed the effects of wartime deployments on Marines making reenlistment decisions. Despite the challenges involved in regular and often long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps successfully met its fiscal 2005 reenlistment goals.
The researchers found that:
- First-term Marines were less likely to reenlist if they had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan
- Career Marines and commissioned officers were more likely to reenlist if they were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan
- Single Marines, particularly first-termers, were less likely to reenlist than Marines with families
SelRes Attrition and the Selected Reserve Incentive Program in the Marine Corps Reserve
CNAC researchers conducted this study to help the Marine Corps Reserve better understand attrition in the Selected Reserve. Drawing on interviews with Guard/Reserve personnel, researchers examine bonuses, bonus eligibility, and factors affecting enlistment and reenlistment, and recommend changes to the Selected Reserve Incentive Program.
Military Compensation Reform in the Department of the Navy
Policy-makers and analysts have consistently pointed to the need to reform the military compensation system. In this study for the Department of the Navy, which encompasses the Navy and the Marine Corps, economists Michael Hansen and Martha Koopman say that despite the broad consensus, transforming the system into a set of compensation tools that are aligned with the department's objectives will not be easy.
In reforming its compensation system, the authors recommend that the Department of the Navy:
- Seek to reduce, but not eliminate, across-the-board compensation. This will allow the department to retain certain useful, across-the-board salary increases while having more flexibility in using targeted pay raises
- Modify its existing compensation tools so that the system can reward high performance
- Reduce the compensation system's emphasis on deferred compensation, such as retirement pay and retiree health care, by repealing recent enhancements or, at a minimum, by aggressively resisting any further increases
CNAC's Retirement Choice Calculator: Computing DoD's Retirement Options
CNAC's Retirement Choice Calculator lets future military retirees determine how much they would earn under DoD's High-3 retirement plan, which bases retirement pay on the highest average basic pay for three years of a career, or under the REDUX plan, which provides a $30,000 upfront bonus with smaller retirement checks over time. (The differing plans affect service members who joined the military after July 31, 1986.)
The calculator, developed as part of CNAC's Retirement Choice study, allows service members to determine which plan would earn them the most money based on factors including their retirement age, years of service, and the rank at which they will retire.
Does Education Reform Make Recruiting More Difficult?
The number of young people who receive General Education Development (GED) certificates rather than high school diplomas has increased recently. At the same time, states are tightening their requirements for high school graduation. These changes have the potential to make recruiting more difficult because military policies strictly limit the number of people who may enlist without a high school diploma.
CNAC researchers examined data from the 2000 Census, as well as Navy and Marine Corps service records, to discover the effects of these changing education policies and found that the changes help some civilians but harm others. Within the Navy and Marine Corps, the effects are more muted. The policies have not affected attrition rates, but have had some influence on the quality of recruits.
Non-citizens in Today's Military
Legal permanent residents, or green card holders, are highly successful in the military, which bodes well for the Department of Defense as it examines future recruiting prospects.
The study points out that today’s foreign-born U.S. population is the largest in history, and immigrants will fuel much of the future growth among America’s youth. The authors conclude that this population could help alleviate recruiting gaps and meet current and future personnel needs, while also providing opportunities for new immigrants. Of the 16 million foreign-born people who came to the United States between 1990 and 2002, almost a quarter were under age 21.
But despite a large pool of roughly 1.5 million non-citizens, there are obstacles to their recruitment. The military services require that at least 90 percent of recruits have a high school diploma, and many recent immigrants have not finished high school. Limited English proficiency among non-citizens is another challenge.
The study's authors recommend that in order to further facilitate recruitment and retention of non-citizens, the Department of Defense should:
- Develop recruiting materials aimed at non-citizens that explain eligibility for expedited citizenship, the benefits of filing for citizenship while in the military, and the benefits of attaining citizenship
- Consider more structured, installation-based assistance that would help non-citizen service members and their dependents with the citizenship process
- Investigate, through the Office of the Secretary of Defense, whether more uniform treatment of non-citizens across the military services is needed. Military policy is generally uniform across the services, but in matters of recruitment, reenlistment, and use of non-citizen service members, the policies of each service branch differ
Endstrength: Forecasting Marine Corps Losses Final Report
The Marine Corps's manpower costs—about $9.4 billion—represent 60 percent of its annual budget. Before this study, there was no institutionalized and documented methodology for forecasting losses and no systematic attempt to improve existing techniques. Personnel charged with developing plans to meet Marine Corps endstrength requirements relied on information gleaned during overlap with their predecessors and sometimes developed their own methods, which were susceptible to errors.
The study's authors revamped the process to make it more systematic and recommended ways to accurately forecast endstrength losses and gains.
Recruiting Hispanics: The Marine Corps Experience
The Marine Corps has been very successful at recruiting Hispanics, and Hispanic recruits do well in the Marine Corps. This study highlights several challenges that may affect the services' ability to recruit Hispanics in the future—including high levels of high school dropout rates, language fluency of recruits and their parents, and citizenship status.
The authors recommend that the Department of Defense (DoD) or any organization interested in this segment of the population work to ensure the continued success of Hispanic recruits by:
- Supporting a stay-in-school campaign
- Urging that the federal government raise the minimum age for taking the GED exam
- Translating recruiting brochures and materials into a variety of languages
- Adding country-of-origin identification to accession data
- Ensuring Green Card service members have information about legal permanent residency and expedited citizenship
The Hispanic population has grown dramatically over time—from 5 percent of the population in 1975 to over 12 percent in 2003. In fact, Hispanics are the largest minority population in the United States today, and the population is predicted to grow 25 percent over the next decade. Whether recruiting for the military or for the civilian workforce, understanding how to attract and retain this segment of the U.S. population is becoming increasingly important.
