Research for Females

The Deputy of Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower and Personnel asked CNA to study various issues related to maintaining fleet readiness while expanding the role of women in the operating forces. First, we studied the pattern of losses of personnel from ships by gender and explored policies aimed at reducing them. Second, we updated a CNA planning model that links women's accession plans, bunk plans, and a variety of personnel policy parameters. Recommendations include maintaining a presence of female Chief Petty Officers of a least 5 percent of the female crew in order to reduce the level of unplanned losses of junior women, and increasing A-School proportion of female accessions in order to improve retention of female personnel.

This report poses the question of how many women's bunks are needed in the larger context of enlisted personnel management policies. The relevant aspects of personnel policy are the number of female accession, their occupational distribution, and women's continuation behavior. In addition, the decision on the number of women's bunks is connected to possible policy goals in the areas of gender-neutral recruiting, female leadership afloat, equal access to assignments, and the related issue of gender differences in shipboard duty.

Since 1980, the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) has conducted a number of studies related to women's service in the United States Navy and Marine Corps. This information memorandum is a bibliography of that research. First, we briefly summarize the recent results related to women's service; next, we explain the format of the publications section. Finally, we list relevant publications--grouped by topic area--with brief summaries.

This research memorandum provides an overview of gender differences in the continuation rates for enlisted Marines. It also contains a detailed analysis of first-term attrition for female recruits with four-year obligations accessed in FY 1981 through FY 1985. In this analysis, female first-term attrition probabilities are modeled as a function of background characteristics at entry into the Marine Corps.