Research for demography

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America's Military: A Coat of Many Colors
July 1, 2001
Since the onset of the volunteer military almost 30 years ago (1973), the American full-time workforce has become more diverse, and the active-duty military reflects that diversity. This paper considers comparisons of full-time, military-age (18 to 44 years) civilian workers and active-duty military personnel in 1970 and 2000. In that 30-year period, percentages of civilian workers changed from 89 to 70 percent white, from 10 to 12 percent black, and from 1 to 18 percent other racial categories. The percentage of women in the civilian workforce rose from 29 to 41 percent. Percentage differences in the active-duty military population between 1970 and 2000 are comparable: from 83 to 65 percent white, from 11 to 20 percent black, and from 6 to 14 percent other racial/ethnic backgrounds. The percentage of women in the military increased from 2 to 15 percent. This research memorandum begins with a discussion of this increased diversity with the Gates Commission and the beginning of the all-volunteer force, and of how representative of society the all-volunteer force is today.
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Attrition of Navy Recruits From Initial Skills Training
July 1, 2001
The Navy expects to enlist about 55,000 sailors each year in the near future, and faces the challenge of training and delivering these recruits to operational billets. Accordingly, policy-makers wish to monitor the fraction of recruits who complete training, as well as the time it takes them to reach the fleet. In this report, we track sailors "from street to fleet, " analyzing factors that influence attrition from the Navy during the period of initial skills training. A companion report describes street-to-fleet trends and focuses on the time it takes recruits to reach the fleet. The Director, Assessment Division (N81) requested this study as part of the Navy's Manpower and Personnel Integrated Warfare Architecture (IWAR). The IWAR is a planning vehicle that uses analyses to shape long-range goals and policies. This study examines prefleet attrition from the Navy; it does not investigate losses from the fleet, attrition from specific courses, or transitions between training programs. CNA conducted a regression analysis to define patterns in attrition as they relate to gender, rating, and training time.
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The Civil Service Workforce After Strategic Sourcing
August 1, 2000
In June 1999, the Navy's Five Year Development Plan included roughly 80,000 civilian positions as part of its "competitive sourcing initiative." As a result of competitive sourcing, half or more of the positions involved with commercial activities (Navy activities that are similar to activities in industry) could be removed from the civil service roles either because of outsourcing or internal efficiencies. Because the competitions were planned for the most part, as isolated actions, the broader consequences of these competitions for the overall civil service workforce were not fully understood. For this reason, the Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (N1B) asked CNA to develop some guidelines that would help decision-makers plan for the consequences of the Navy's competitive sourcing initiative. Specifically, the request was to (a) establish a baseline of the current and past civil service workforce, and project changes that could result from the competitive sourcing initiative; (b) benchmark the Navy system and its
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Quantity and Quality of Attrition
July 1, 2000
This briefing on attrition was presented to the Navy Human Resources Board of Directors in June 2000. While one of its purposes was to raise the awareness level of the attrition problem among the Navy's senior leadership, we concentrated on how the Navy can change its system so that the attrition issue is raised in importance at lower levels in the command structure, even when the senior leadership is focused on other issues. We organized our suggestions/recommendations into two categories-improving accountability within the system and incentives.
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