Research for Marine Corps

In this paper, we examine the Selected Reserve (SelRes) affiliation behavior of prior-service (PS) Marines. We use Marine Corps Total Force Structure (MCTFS) data on enlisted Marines and Marine officers who left active duty and transitioned to the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) between October 2001 and September 2011. We estimate the effect of Marine characteristics and service history (active duty and reserve) on the SelRes affiliation decisions.

CNA has maintained personnel databases for the Marine Corps for more than 30 years, with individual accession records going back to FY79. Just as long as we have been keeping the official records, we have been analyzing recruit characteristics and attrition through studies and scientific analyst memoranda. Over the years, we have identified characteristics that are particularly important to monitor because they are closely associated with successful adaptation to life in the Marine Corps.

This annotated briefing analyzes the last 30 years, trying to answer the following questions:
• Have recruit characteristics changed over time?
• Have the relationships between recruit characteristics and subsequent attrition remained stable or have the patterns changed?
• What characteristics are most important for predicting success in the Corps?

While most of the focus is on accession characteristics and bootcamp attrition, we also look at first-term attrition and long-term retention.
 

The Global War on Terror has become the Long War, and the increase in operational tempo that enlisted Marines and Marine officers have experienced since 9/11 is expected to continue. Although the Corps exceeded its aggressive FY07 endstrength goal, we continue to monitor the relationship between deployment tempo and retention. We analyze how deployment tempo, measured by deployed days and number of deployments, influences reenlistment and retention. We look at the reenlistment decisions of enlisted Marines between FY04 and FY07 and the retention decisions of Marine officers between December 2006 and December 2007. We find that additional deployments to the Iraq/Afghanistan country groups decreased first-term reenlistments during the FY04-FY07 period. Focusing just on FY07, we find that additional deployments to the Iraq/Afghanistan country groups are predicted to increase reenlistment for Marines with dependents and decrease reenlistments for Marines without dependents. For FY04-FY07 and just FY07, we find that an additional 100 days deployed in non-crisis areas has no statistically significant effect on reenlistments for first-term Marines with dependents but decreases reenlistments for Marines without dependents. Among career Marines and Marine officers, we find that additional deployed days have either no effect or a small positive effect on retention.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps wants to ensure that Marines reflect the racial and ethnic characteristics of society. This paper examines the accession, representation, success, and retention of black and Hispanic Marines in the Corps’ active component. We find that black Marines’ accession and representation shares have fallen and currently are below the relevant black shares of the U.S. population. In contrast, the accession and representation shares of Hispanic Marines have generally increased over time. We also assess the occupational distribution of black and Hispanic Marines and find that they are more likely to be concentrated in support occupations. Next, we examine retention and Quality of Life for black enlisted Marines. We find that their retention behavior indicates that they have found satisfying careers in the Corps. The Corps offers black Marines steady jobs with good economic security, and black male Marines are as likely to be married as their white counterparts. Finally, we determine the prevalence of leadership and promotion opportunities for black and Hispanic Marines. We find that black and Hispanic Marines constitute a larger share of the Corps’ top enlisted ranks than suggested by their accession shares and they have done very well in officer promotions.