It’s All About the Rank

Any list of the best places to work is sure to include cool favorites like Google. The U.S. military? The sacrifices and risks required of its members seem to make it an unlikely pick. But new research suggests that it may well belong on such a list, particularly for minorities and women. The members of those two demographics in the military consistently rate their jobs as more satisfying than white males do, according to new research in this month's American Sociological Review. Much like Manning's military experience, the study of over 30,000 active duty personnel suggests that the armed forces' social hierarchy—explicitly based on rank—overrides many of the racial or gender biases in civil society, which tend to act as barriers for women and minorities in career advancement.

"Whites are far and away the least satisfied [in the military]," says Jennifer Hickes Lundquist, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts and the study author. "Black females tend to be the most satisfied. It's a direct opposite and complete reversal of what we know about civilian job satisfaction."

In civilian society African-Americans generally express higher dissatisfaction with their jobs than their white counterparts and are less committed. But Lundquist's study of 30,000 active-duty personnel found that those norms are largely flipped in the military. She looked at five measurements of career satisfaction, including overall quality of life and opportunities for advancement, and found African-American women to be the most positive and satisfied with their jobs, followed by African-American men, Latinas, Latinos and white women. White men are the least satisfied with their military careers, rating their satisfaction and overall happiness with their jobs much lower.

“uh...it's called affirmative action.”

There's another factor at work that I read about. Because minorities tend to look at the military as a career opportunity while whites tend to look at the military as a duty to be filled, each demographic tends to go into different branches. Minorities tend to sign up for support and administrative positions while whites tend to sign up for the combat branches. When I read this, I was skeptical. However, after observing news segments on tv and such, my antedoctal opinion is that the article may be correct.

uh...it's called affirmative action.

Actually, the armed services got rid of affirmative action about ten years ago. The services got tired of pending lawsuits after every promotion board.

Service members are promoted strictly on the strength of their file now - with no "additional points" or "adjustments" for race or gender. And how about that? Promoting people on merit instead of skin color has worked out just fine - like this article attests.

Thanks...I have a son-in-law who is active duty Navy and he's doing just fine and is career.

But I had not heard that affirmnative action has been ended in the Military Services. Do you have a link or reference to that effect?

I work for the Federal Government and have certainly not heard or seen it in this Agency where sometimes these types of policies (besides what I consider to be their moral shortcomings) border on the absurd and assurance that the Peter principal is alive and well.

Do not get me wrong, IMHO, it would be great news and would serve to insure that only the best (regardless of race or gender) rise in rank in the military which is exactly as it should be.

I can at least speak for the Army's policy. Check out this link:

http://www.adversity.net/military.htm

The site cites a March 2000 (eigth years ago) Army Times article which states:

"Responding to a flurry of reverse discrimination lawsuits, the Army has changed the affirmative-action and equal-opportunity instructions given to officer promotion, school and command selection boards.

"The changes involve board procedures that have evolved over the past three decades to encourage the selection of women and minorities at rates comparable to the dominant race/gender group under consideration, which for most boards is white males.

"The old instructions required boards to compile an order-of-merit list and set a tentative cut line for selection. If a board did not meet its equal opportunity goal, it was required to conduct a file review of officers in the affected race or gender group to look for past discrimination.

"The new instructions do not set [racial] goals, and they do not provide for race/gender file reviews or the revoting of files."

While I agree that the military overall is good a being race neutral, especially in the enlisted ranks, the officer ranks are a little different. They are very political. Making rank is not the entire picture. As you move toward the senior military ranks, there are a lot of things that happen behind closed doors when it comes to command selection. There are a few minority officers who screen for command because of the color of their skin. While they are capable, there are more capable white officers who are not selected. I have seen it a few times during my 21 years. I understand why we do it though. There are a lot of minority junior enlisted who need the role model in the officer ranks. However, In order to make O-6 in the Navy, you had to have served in a command billet as an O-5. This is where less capable officers sometimes continue to move up, while the more capable white officers fall by the wayside. I myself just recently screened for O-5 (Commander), but it does not look like I will screen for command. I guarantee you that if I were a minority, I would have a better shot to move up. The mistep I made was to go to Iraq as a ground officer to help the Marine Corps in Fallujah (I am a Navy pilot) instead of the War College to get my JPME. The JPME in my community is more important to my career progression than the IA. I am an operational guy and I can’t stand sitting at a desk. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy to have made O-5 in the Navy given how hard it is to advance these days, but this may be a slight factor in a little bit of the bitterness seen by white men in this survey.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.