Chapter Eight
Promotion
The next stage of the personnel life cycle is selecting servicemembers for promotion. In the military’s closed personnel system,1 the demographic diversity of senior leadership depends largely on the relative career progression rates of members of each demographic group: If racial/ethnic minorities and women advance at lower rates than white men, they will be underrepresented in the top leadership positions. Thus, potential barriers to promotion and resulting demographic differences in promotion rates can affect the future demographic diversity of senior military leadership. Typically, there are more servicemembers eligible for promotion than can be selected, so selection depends critically on identifying the best and most-qualified candidates. To understand how racial/ethnic minorities and women are currently faring in the military promotion process, the Commission asked the Services to provide data regarding average promotion rates.2 The findings presented in this chapter do not reflect RC data, however. The information requested from the RC either had not been compiled or collected or was not available in a comparable format.
Demographic Differences in Average Promotion Rates Line Officer Promotion Rates The Services were asked to provide data on line officers in pay grades O-4 through O-6. Line officers are officers who serve in combat-related specialties, and they constitute the majority of officers. Noncombat specialties include chaplains, lawyers, logisticians, and medical officers. Also, comparing line officers controls for potential occupational differences that may influence promotion rates, such as being in a tactical/ operational career field. In several cases, the data showed that promotion rates from O-4 through O-6 for several racial/ethnic minority groups were lower than the average. In particular,
1
As described in Chapter Four, the military operates as a closed personnel system in that senior leaders cannot be brought in from the outside but are instead brought up through the lower ranks. Therefore, as previously noted, each stage of the military personnel life cycle—from who is recruited to who is promoted—is intricately linked to the composition of the future military leadership.
2
Army and Air Force averages are based on data from FY 2007 to FY 2009, Navy and Coast Guard averages are based on data from FY 2007 to FY 2010, and Marine Corps averages are based on data from FY 2008 to FY 2010.
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