Why Promotable Female Officers Leave the Army

Can We Explain Gender Differences in Officer Career Progression?

“…In other words, being a dual-military spouse is advantageous to female officers for this career milestone. This finding is surprising given the level of attention that issues and challenges facing dual-military couples have received from the research and policy communities (L. Miller et al, 2011;Smith, 2010;Moini, Zellman, and Gates, 2006;Steinberg, Harris, and Scarville, 1993;Teplitzky, 1988). Our study does not imply that dual-military couples do not face challenges with such issues as colocation and finding adequate and dependable childcare, as past research has demonstrated.…”

“…This finding is surprising given the attention that issues and challenges facing dual-military couples have received from the research and policy communities (L. Miller et al, 2011;Smith, 2010;Moini, Zellman, and Gates, 2006;Steinberg, Harris, and Scarville, 1993;Teplitzky, 1988).…”

“…Qualitative studies have found that female service members indicate that time separated from family and work or life conflicts are their top reasons for leaving the military (Jones, 1997;Steinberg, Harris, and Scarville, 1993). An unpublished quantitative analysis from RAND found lower continuation rates for female officers with a child younger than one at home.…”

“…Another quantitative analysis indicated that being married and having dependents is positively related to officer retention for men but has no statistically significant relationship with retention for female officers (Kraus et al, 2013). Female officers cited difficulty in finding adequate childcare, particularly during times of deployment (Long, 2010;Smith, 2010;Steinberg, Harris, and Scarville, 1993;Teplitzky, 1988). Interviews and focus groups of female and male officers, summarized in Hosek et al (2001), revealed that perceived limited occupational roles, concerns about harassment, and competing family obligations were the main reasons cited for why female officers separate from the military at a substantially greater rate than men.…”

“…Research suggests that dual-career officers can have difficulty maintaining a joint domicile, and such difficulties are an important contributor to the decision to leave (Smith, 2010;Steinberg, Harris, and Scarville, 1993;Teplitzky, 1988). Long (2010) found that deployments have a negative relationship with retention intentions, and the negative effect is larger for dualcareer members than for other groups.…”