AIR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Winning the Retention Wars

The Air Force, Women Officers,

and the Need for Transformation

LAURA A. H. DISILVERIO

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Fairchild Paper

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6615

August 2003
ii

This Fairchild Paper and others in the series are available electronically at the AU Press Web site http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil

and the Air University Research Web site http://research.maxwell.

af.mil.

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of

the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air

Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Air University Library Cataloging Data

DiSilverio, Laura A. H.

—Winning the retention wars : the Air Force, women officers, and the need for

transformation / Laura A. H. DiSilverio.

—p. ; cm. — (Fairchild paper, ISSN 1528-2325)

—Includes bibliographical references and index.

—ISBN 1-58566-120-1

1. United States. Air Force -- Women. 2. United States. Air Force -- Women --

Recruiting, enlistment, etc. 3. Recruiting and enlistment -- United States. Employee

retention -- United States. I. Title. II. Series.

358.40082—dc21
Dedicated To

Muir S. Fairchild (1894 1950), the first commander of

Air University and the university’s conceptual father.

General Fairchild was part visionary, part keen taskmaster,

and “Air Force to the core.” His legacy is one of confidence

about the future of the Air Force and the central 

role of Air University in that future.
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi

1 WHY THE AIR FORCE NEEDS WOMEN . . . . . . . 1

The War for Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Value of Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2 WHY WOMEN LEAVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Reasons for Leaving the Air Force . . . . . . . . . . 27

Retention Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

3 USEFULNESS AND FEASIBILITY OF

RETENTION MEASURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Home Basing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Sabbatical/Break in Service Opportunity . . . . 45

Permeability of Active-Reserve Barrier . . . . . . . 49

Childbirth/Nursing Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Appendix

A SURVEY ON SEPARATION/RETENTION

OF AIR FORCE WOMEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

B SURVEY COVER LETTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

v
Page

RECOMMENDED READING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Illustrations

Figure

1 Percentage of Men and Women by Years

of Commissioned Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

2 Number of USAF General Officers

by Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3 Percentage of Respondents by Rank 

and Time in Service at Separation . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4 Percentage of Respondents by Marital . . . . . . . . 28

Status and Number of Children

Tables

1 Reasons for Leaving the Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2 Effects of Retention Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

vi
Foreword

The Air Force and the national defense mission are the big

losers when talented individuals choose to separate early. Although specific separation figures are not available, analysis

of the percentage of men and women by commissioned years

of service in the Air Force indicates that women separate prior

to retirement more frequently than men. The percentages of

men and women remain steady through the first four years,

the typical period of post-commissioning commitment. By the

fifth year, the number of women drops 2 percent, and by the

following year, the number of women drops an additional four

percent, with corresponding increases in the percentage of

men. The percentage of women continues to decrease gradually through year 20, the point of retirement eligibility. Having

determined that women separate from the Air Force prior to retirement eligibility more often than men, Lt Col Laura DiSilverio

wanted to find out why.

The only people with the answers were the women who

had separated, so the author developed a survey to elicit the

reasons for separating. The results of this survey of 1,000

women appear in this paper. The first chapter demonstrates

why the Air Force needs women. It makes the demographic

case and presents research results showing the value of diversity in general and the value of women leaders in particular. The second chapter presents the survey results, analyzes

why women separate from the Air Force, and lists the types

of programs that might retain them. The final chapter looks

at the feasibility of implementing some programs that might

help the Air Force retain more of its talented members.

As the Air Force surges into the twenty-first century and

prosecutes the global war on terrorism, it must analyze its

force mix and organizational structures across the total force.

We must counter asymmetric threats and capabilities by asymmetric thinking not only about how we employ systems, but

vii
also about how we organize, manage, and lead our people. Revolutionary change is imperative.

viii

Dr. Shirley B. Laseter

Director

Air University Library & Press
Lt Col Laura A. H. DiSilverio is a career intelligence officer

who is currently the deputy commander of the 544th Information Operations Group at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. She

has commanded an information operations squadron in England and has served in the national intelligence community

with the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. Her other intelligence experience includes a

tour at Kunsan Air Base, Korea, and a tour as the chief of intelligence at 19th Air Force. She has served as a military assistant to the assistant secretary of the Air Force (Space). Additionally, she taught in the Department of English at the

United States Air Force Academy for three years and created

and edited Air Education and Training Command’s safety

magazine, Torch.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (Rhetoric)

from Trinity University and a Master of Arts degree in English

(Literature) from the University of Pennsylvania. She was a

distinguished graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air

Command and Staff College and completed Air War College in

residence in June 2002.

ix

About the

Author
Acknowledgments

I would like to gratefully acknowledge many people whose

generosity with their time, expertise, and support made it possible for me to complete this project. These people include my

seminar mates who stuffed 1,000 envelopes and applied 1,000

stamps to help mail out surveys; all those who graciously

granted me interviews, sharing their time and expertise; SSgt

Smith in Student Operations, and the orderly room staff for

their administrative support; Dr. Daniel Henk and Col Thomas

Hall for their critical reviews of paper drafts and encouragement throughout; my family for putting up with my absorption

in this project for nine months; and, most of all, the Air Force

women who generously responded to the survey, sharing their

time, insights, and personal experiences in the hope that their

contributions might improve our nation’s Air Force.

xi
Introduction

During my last assignment as a squadron commander, I

signed off on the paper work allowing three noncommissioned

officers (NCO) to separate from the Air Force due to pregnancy.

Only one of those women wanted to separate from the Air

Force. The other two felt they were forced to leave the Air Force

because there was no adequate child care at our geographically

separated location in England to support the needs of a dualcareer family working rotating 12-hour shifts. Only open from

0645 until 1830 on weekdays, the Child Development Center

did not even completely support the needs of workers on the

day shift. Workers on “mids,” (shifts from 1900 to 0700) had to

rely on outside child care providers. During the two years I

served at Royal Air Force Menwith Hill, the base had only one

licensed child care provider. That was not enough for a workforce of approximately 2,000 people. Off-base child care was

prohibitively expensive and inconvenient, and few caregivers

were willing to provide overnight care. Dual-career couples literally had no acceptable options. So, the three NCOs left the Air

Force, creating a lose-lose-lose situation. The women lost because they valued their Air Force careers and did not want to

leave. The Air Force lost not only loyal NCOs, but also a large

monetary investment: one of the women was a linguist trained

in a language of great value to the Air Force today, and two

were intelligence NCOs with highly specialized, technical abilities and experience. All had spent at least 18 months in training. The national security mission suffered because replacements for those women could not arrive for at least six months.

Over the course of several months spanning my transition

from commander to student, I resolved to try and make sense

of some of the factors I saw coming into play in the above situations. One fact crystallized my thinking and spawned the

research project I embarked on at Air War College: The Air

Force and the national defense mission are the big losers

when talented individuals choose to separate early—for whatever reason—from the military. Anecdotally, it seems clear

that women more frequently separate from the Air Force prior

to reaching retirement eligibility than men. Although the Air

xiii
Force Personnel Center would not make specific separation

figures available, analysis of the percentage of men and women

by commissioned years of service in the Air Force appears to

bear out the anecdotal evidence. The percentages of men and

women remain steady through the first four years, the typical

period of post-commissioning commitment. By the fifth year,

the number of women drops 2 percent, and by the following

year, the number of women drops an additional 4 percent,

with corresponding increases in the percentage of men. As figure 1 shows, the percentage of women continues to decrease

gradually through year 20, the point of retirement eligibility.

Having determined that women do, in fact, separate from the

Air Force prior to retirement eligibility more often than men, I

wanted to find out why.

The only people with the answers were the women who had

separated, so I developed a survey to elicit their reasons for

separating. The results of this survey of 1,000 women appear

later in this paper. However, another question begged for an

answer: Why should the Air Force care if women are separating earlier and in greater numbers than men? Frankly, when

I began this project, I was not sure the Air Force should care

xiv

Figure 1. Percentage of Men and Women by Years of Commissioned

Service

100

80

60

40

20

0

1234 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Percent of 

Members

Years of Service

Men

Women

Source: Air Force Personnel Center, Personnel Statistics Website—Officer Demographics, “Commissioned

Years of Service, By Gender, Aero Rating,” n.d., on-line, Internet, available from http://www.afpc.randolph.

af.mil/demographics/officermenu.htm
for any other reason than that it needs a certain number of

98.6 degree bodies to fill its billets. My instincts all told me

that the Air Force should fight to retain any talented individual and that women have something unique to offer that

makes the Air Force a better, more effective organization because they are part of it. But one, tiny, disquieting part of my

mind surfaced the thought that maybe the Air Force mission

could be accomplished just as effectively by an all-male force,

or even a white male force. And if that thought occurred to me,

I knew others would think of it as well (even if they would not

say it in today’s politically correct environment). Never mind

the fact that the Air Force can no longer recruit sufficient personnel for an all-volunteer force without including women and

minorities; if the Air Force and civilian leadership remain unconvinced that women (and other minorities) do contribute to

mission effectiveness, then they have no incentive to find out

why women separate from the Air Force in greater numbers

than men or to develop programs to retain them. Sadly, the

fact that the Air Force has conducted no research to determine

why women separate from the Air Force suggests either that

leaders have not noticed the problem, or that they do not consider it to be a problem.1 Either way, the lose-lose-lose scenario of the first paragraph is perpetuated.

Numerous direct quotations from the survey and statistics

calculated from the survey answers are given in the text, but

most have no note citations. The original survey materials are

retained in the author’s personal collection.

This paper contains three major sections. The first section

demonstrates why the Air Force needs women. It makes the demographic case and presents research results showing the

value of diversity in general and the value of women leaders in

particular. The second section presents the survey results and

analyzes why women separate from the Air Force and what

sorts of programs might retain them longer. The third section

looks at the feasibility of implementing some programs that

might help the Air Force retain more of its talented members

longer—regardless of gender.

There are two things this paper specifically does not contain.

It does not contain a rehash of the “Do women belong in

xv
combat?” issue. The nation’s legislators have settled that question. Further, the military could not make up the numbers in an

all-volunteer force without women, and Congress probably

would include women in a draft. This paper also does not contain any suggestion that the Air Force implement programs

designed to benefit only one demographic group. The policy and

program changes in the third chapter apply equally to all Air

Force members and may well boost retention in all demographic

areas.

As the Air Force surges into the twenty-first century and

prosecutes the global war on terrorism, it must analyze its force

mix and organizational structures across the total force. We

must counter asymmetric threats and capabilities by asymmetric thinking not only about how we employ systems, but

also about how we organize, manage, and lead our people.

Revolutionary change is imperative. Most of the discussion of

a revolution in US military affairs (RMA) has centered around

technology, and yet a key ingredient of an RMA has always

been organizational structures. Technology alone, or reliance

on technology alone, will result in failure. The ideas in this

paper might shake up some of the rigid institutional mind-sets

that have restricted the Air Force’s ability to capitalize on technological advances. By offering new ways of thinking about

people’s value and transformational ways of shaping Air Force

culture, organization, and personnel practices, this paper provides a blueprint for the Air Force’s first steps on the path to

an RMA grounded in organizational structures.

Note

1. Approximately every three years the Air Force Personnel Center’s Surveys

Branch distributes an “exit” survey to members who have submitted separation paperwork. This data is presented, along with data from a careers survey that determines why individuals stay in the Air Force, in a report from Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC). The most recent report is AFPC, Report on Career Decisions in the Air Force:

Results of the 2000 USAF Careers and New Directions Surveys (Randolph Air Force

Base, Tex.: AFPC, 30 November 2000). The data is broken out by officer-enlisted.

Nowhere is the data broken out by male-female; thus, no one has analyzed data to determine if women separate for different reasons than men.

xvi
Chapter 1

Why the Air Force Needs Women

This chapter answers the question: “Why does the Air Force

need women?” For some individuals, the answer is intuitively

obvious and they might wonder why I pose the question. For

others, the response is, “It doesn’t.” This chapter is for the

readers who fall somewhere between these two extremes and

who cannot articulate exactly what women bring to the table,

but who are pretty much convinced that an all-male force is not

in the best interests of our nation’s defense. Demographics and

diversity are the keys to understanding the title statement.

Demographics, as presented below, demonstrate conclusively

that the Air Force needs to recruit talent from every source

and show that women will make up a larger portion of the

available talent in the upcoming decade.

This chapter also presents research on the benefits of diversity for an organization, that is, the benefits of including a mix

of ethnicities and gender in the workplace. Does this research

prove conclusively that all organizations are better off including

minorities on their payrolls? No. The research presents a convincing circumstantial case for the benefits of diversity, but available scholarship lacks a mensuration capacity to bring empirical

analysis to this subjective topic. I am aware of the bias within

the Air Force, peopled as it is by engineers and pilots, for such

quantifiable data as airspeed, number of safety mishaps, or percentage of Air War College graduates promoted to colonel. However, too many factors may have contributed to a company’s rise

in sales one quarter to definitively claim it was due to the addition of two women and an Hispanic man to the sales team. Similarly, it is impossible to state that a 20 percent improvement in

retention of airmen in one squadron is a direct result of a female

commander or first sergeant. The fact that the results are not

quantifiable does not negate their impact or importance. Many

a court case has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the

preponderance of circumstantial evidence.

1
The War for Talent

Few people would argue with the contention that the military needs good people to be an effective force. “People are our

most precious resource,” is an often-heard refrain in military

briefings. “Mission first, people always” is another popular slogan. The Air Force, in particular, with its reliance on high-end

technologies, needs talented, educated, and innovative people

to carry out its missions. Recruiting and retaining those people

is a challenge engaging the attention of the Air Force’s most

senior leaders and personnel experts. “Meeting the fiscal 2000

recruiting goal is good news,” SSgt K. Fitzgerald Stewart reports, “but keeping those new recruits in Air Force blue is one

of the greater challenges facing the service today.”1 Lt Col Julie

Stanley, the Air Force’s chief of retention policy, told Air Force

News that the Air Force is “working hard to fix the retention

issues.”2 But despite the emphasis put on recruitment and retention, the military is losing the war for talent, contends David

H. McCormick in a 1999 report for The McKinsey Quarterly. He

states the consequences of losing the war for talent: “To lose

the war for talent is to accept a second-rate military in which

the most capable men and women in the United States do not

choose to serve.”3

The military is not alone in its quest for talented people. Corporations across the United States are engaged in the same

battle for talent, and many of them think the fight is intensifying. In a 2000 survey of 6,900 managers at 56 large and midsize companies, 89 percent thought it was harder to recruit

good people than is was in 1997, and 90 percent thought it was

more difficult to retain them.4 The military’s challenge is substantially greater than the corporate challenge for several reasons. First and foremost, the military must grow its senior and

midlevel leaders from within its own ranks. The military cannot

reach out and tap the successful chief executive officer of a

manufacturing firm to fill a general’s slot or hire an insurance

executive as a squadron commander. It is limited to the people

it has trained and retained long enough to garner sufficient

seniority and expertise to fill those positions. Thus, losing

midlevel people is much more debilitating for the military than

it is for the private sector. Second, supervisors within the

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military lack the ability to hire, fire, or promote their “employees,” a situation that is virtually unique in the world marketplace for talent. Finally, the military’s ability to develop its

people’s talent is compromised by frequent rotations of personnel.5

Several trends serve both to reduce the availability of talent

over the coming decade and create more competition for it.

The number of 35- to 44-year olds, that is, those individuals

sufficiently “seasoned” to move into senior level jobs in either

the military or civilian sectors, will decline by 15 percent between 2000 and 2001.6 One generation will have aged, and the

generation behind it has 15 percent fewer people in the critical age bracket. At the same time, the global environment is

driving a requirement for an increasingly sophisticated workforce, for which all employers will compete. The Air Force is

not exempt from the need for a sophisticated workforce. In the

military, fighting with coalitions will require cross-cultural

competencies and the ability to lead and manage complex, disaggregated organizations. Additionally, technological literacy

is also key even at senior levels. And it will become more so as

the Air Force embraces concepts of net-centric warfare and information operations.

Another trend Elizabeth Chambers points out is the rise of

small- and medium-sized companies that exert a powerful pull

on the available talent. Small companies offer “opportunities for

impact and wealth that few large firms can match,”7 she states.

Military leaders would argue that people looking for wealth are

not attracted to military service in the first place, and that is

mostly true. However, the kinds of people who want to serve in

the military are the kinds of people who want to have an impact. In many cases, the dynamic, smaller business ventures

springing up around the United States offer an earlier opportunity to have an impact than does the military hierarchy. 

The last trend impacting recruitment and retention is increasing job mobility. Ten years ago, a superior performer

might have changed employers only once or twice in her career.

Today, the average executive will work for five companies.8 The

concept of loyalty to an employer is not what it was 20 years

ago, or even a decade ago. Although the Air Force does much

3

DISILVERIO
to instill an ethic of loyalty, it cannot count on as many members

“making a career” of the Air Force at the start of the millennium

as it did 10 or 15 years ago. Recruits coming into the Air Force

today have watched their parents switch jobs numerous times

and are comfortable with the idea of changing employers. The

Air Force and business corporations must create a value

proposition that does not hinge solely on loyalty.9

The scarcity of talent and the never-ending need to recruit, develop, and retain that talent, may well keep military leaders

awake at night. Although not explicitly stated, one thing should

be clear by now: no employer, including the military, can afford

to overlook any source of talent. The military needs to explore

new avenues for filling its ranks with the most qualified, talented

people. Once it has recruited those people, the military needs to

make some significant organizational changes, discussed later,

to retain them. One potential, under-exploited source for military

talent is women.

Two basic reasons exist for attempting to attract and retain

women in the Air Force. First, and more simply, the Air Force

can no longer fill its billets or get its job done without women.

Overall, women make up about 18 percent of the Air Force—

17.3 percent of the officers and 19.5 percent of the enlisted

force. Currently, there are 66,376 women on active duty in the

Air Force.10 Recruiters freely admit that they could not recruit

sufficient numbers of qualified men to fill the billets women

currently occupy. So, in one sense, the debate about whether

women belong in the Air Force is frivolous. There simply would

not be an effective Air Force without women.

Further, that situation is not going to improve. Population

statistics and projections show that of the roughly 42 million

people expected to enter the workforce between 1998 and 2008,

half will be female. Assuming that this trend continues to 2025,

the American labor force, from which the Air Force pulls its personnel, will become more female (48 percent of the available talent will be female versus 46 percent in 1998).11 Even more significantly from the perspective of officer recruitment, the number

of women earning college degrees (a bachelor’s degree is a commissioning requirement) will increase 18 percent by 2009–10 to

776,000. The number of bachelor’s degrees granted to men is

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expected to increase only 5 percent over the same period to

547,000.12 In other words, there will be almost 230,000 more

women in the United States in 2010 eligible for commissioning

as an Air Force officer than there will be men. Clearly, the Air

Force cannot ignore these numbers.

The Value of Diversity

Beyond the numbers, however, lies another consideration.

The Air Force may be more effective at accomplishing its mission with women as part of the force. Years of research on the

benefits and problems associated with increasing the diversity

of a workforce have proven that in the business community a

more diverse workforce is associated with increased productivity, reduction in operating costs, improved quality of management, and increased gain and retention of market share.13

Admittedly, it is difficult to transfer the results of research on

profit-motivated corporations to the government or, more particularly, the military. Our experience with Total Quality Management taught us that. However, the nature of the military

makes it difficult to produce quantifiable research on the value

versus the cost of diversity. The fact that the military is not

usually engaged in war fighting provides a narrow window for

observation of its raison d’etre activity. And observations based

on the peacetime activities of the military might produce data

with no more relevance to its wartime mission than the data

derived from examining corporations. Thus, this chapter carefully extrapolates from the large body of research previously

accomplished on corporate entities and shows probable points

of intersection with the military experience. It also looks at

some research conducted on police departments, since police

departments, like the military, are chartered by society to

“manage violence,” and are clearly masculine by tradition.

They engage in their version of “war” on a routine basis, thus

providing more opportunity for assessing the results of recruiting and retaining women.

A significant body of research exists on the value of diversity

for corporations. In The New Leaders: Guidelines on Leadership

Diversity in America, Ann M. Morrison separates the benefits of

5

DISILVERIO
diversity into four major areas as mentioned above: increased

productivity, reduced operating costs, increased gain and retention of market share, and improved quality of management.14 At first glance, neither the first item (increased productivity), nor the last (gain and retention of market share)

apply to the military, but certain parallels can be drawn.

Increased Productivity

The Air Force is neither a production-oriented organization

nor a service-oriented one in the strictest sense of the business world. Yet, the Air Force does provide a variety of services—

defense of the nation, peacekeeping, deterrence, and others—

to the citizens of the United States and its allies. So, even

though there is no profit motive involved in providing these

services, the Air Force still needs to be concerned with many

of the issues facing profit-motivated organizations. The list includes recruiting, developing, and retaining personnel; acquiring and utilizing material resources; getting an acceptable return on investment; instituting efficient logistics practices;

and maintaining a favorable public image. Indeed some researchers’ findings on increased productivity apply to the Air

Force. It might be useful to translate “increased productivity”

as “enhanced performance” for the purposes of applying this

research to the Air Force.

Researchers have found it difficult to quantify the impact of

diversity on productivity or performance. However, many executives interviewed by researchers feel that they receive

greater productivity from employees who enjoy their work experience, who have low levels of work-related stress, and who

feel valued and competent. Morrison cites a study titled Ensuring Minority Success in Corporate Management that showed

“a multicultural approach has a positive effect on employees’

perception of equity, which in turn affects their morale, goal

setting, effort, and performance. Organizational productivity is

consequently improved.”15

The reverse has also proven true. Data from the United States

workforce demonstrates that minorities, specifically women and

nonwhite men, have a higher turnover rate and higher absentee rates than white men. A frequently advanced argument

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suggests that women’s turnover rates in the workplace can be

attributed to pregnancy and child rearing. However, a 1990 article in the Wall Street Journal presented research that showed

women have higher turnover rates than men at all ages, not

just during the childbearing years.16 Although some have interpreted the higher turnover and absentee rates to mean women

and nonwhite males have less loyalty or “stick-to-itiveness,” a

review of research data conducted by Taylor Cox Jr., associate

professor of organizational behavior and human research

management at the University of Michigan, showed that “organizational experiences of out-group members tend to be less

positive than those of majority group members.”17 In other

words, they have less job satisfaction and are therefore more

likely to leave the organization.

Other studies have demonstrated a link between job satisfaction and reduced employee turnover and absenteeism. Reducing turnover and absenteeism must have a positive effect

on increasing productivity, or, in the case of the Air Force, improving performance. Especially in an organization like the Air

Force, where talent must be grown from within the organization and cannot be hired at the mid or senior leader level from

outside sources, reducing turnover is critical. Reducing turnover

and absenteeism also contribute to cost savings, as the next

section demonstrates.

Such vital organizational attributes as innovation and creativity are linked to diversity. No one could deny that in the

current national security situation, the Air Force needs to foster innovation and creativity in its workforce. The host of

threats confronting the country, both asymmetrical and conventional, makes it imperative to identify and develop innovative leaders in the Air Force. “Traditional” thinking about the

nature of warfare, the employment of airpower, and other strategic issues will not suffice in the fluid, changing, and dangerous

world environment our military now confronts. Numerous studies, including an article for Academy of Management Executive,

have shown a link between increased diversity and increased

innovation within a company.18 Other research found a link between what is essentially job satisfaction and “feeling valued”

by employers and increased innovation without the need for

7

DISILVERIO
reward or recognition.19 These studies support the contention

that increased diversity results in increased innovation, a significant component of enhanced performance.

Similar to innovation, creativity is enhanced by diversity

within an organization. Cox points out, “Enhancing creativity

and problem-solving quality are prime concerns of organizational leaders. To the extent that the existence of group-identity

diversity facilitates these, it adds an important motivation for

actively seeking to maintain a diverse workforce rather than

merely to manage one if it happens to present itself.”20 A significant body of research supports the contention that heterogeneity in work teams promotes creativity and innovation. Cox

summarizes some of the major studies:

• R. M. Kanter’s research showed that companies that deliberately structure heterogeneous work teams “create a

marketplace of ideas” and tended to have lower levels of

racism, sexism, and classism in their work environments.

• Charlene Nemeth demonstrated that “minority views can

stimulate consideration of nonobvious alternatives in

group tasks.” She concluded that groups with minority

members were more creative than homogeneous groups.

• McLeod, Lobel, and Cox conducted research that showed

that ideas produced by groups of diverse composition

were rated 11 percent higher in terms of feasibility and

overall effectiveness than those generated by homogeneous groups.

• Hoffman and Maier discovered that 65 percent of groups

with different personality types and genders produced

high-quality solutions (new, modified, or integrative approaches) to a problem, as compared to only 21 percent of

homogeneous groups.21

These findings apply equally to the Air Force and the corporate world. Increased innovation and creativity in work groups

must benefit any organization. In the current national security

environment, new enemies and challenges for the country,

such as establishing an effective homeland defense, “out of the

box” thinking is more critical than ever. Yet, look at the senior

leadership of the Air Force. Of the 255 generals in the Air

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Force, 98 percent are males, mostly in their 40s and 50s.

Available data do not reveal percentages by race, although observation indicates the percentage of nonwhites is very small.22

Only 11 of the generals are women, and if the lowest rank,

brigadier general, were eliminated, only two would be women

(fig. 2). I venture to suggest that there are few US organizations

of 380,000 people whose executive ranks are so homogeneous.23 In light of the above research, what impact must that

homogeneity have on Air Force creativity and innovation at the

most senior levels?

Cost Savings

Managers interviewed by Ann Morrison for her book, The

New Leaders, expect diversity programs to result in a decrease

in turnover, especially for nontraditional employees (women

and minorities). Clearly, these companies’ diversity programs

consist of more than merely allowing nontraditional employees

9

DISILVERIO

Brig Gen Maj Gen Lt Gen General

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

130

8

82

2

38

1

12

0

Men

Women

Figure 2. Number of USAF General Officers by Gender

Source: Air Force Personnel Center, Personnel Statistics Website—Officer Demographics, “Commissioned

Years of Service, By Gender, Aero Rating,” n.d., on-line, Internet, available from http://www.afpc.randolph.af.

mil/demographics/officermenu.htm
to join the organization. Equally clear is the difficulty in establishing a direct causal link between diversity programs and a

reduction in turnover because other factors almost certainly

play a role. However, Corning Incorporated knows there is a

definite link. The international company instituted innovative

diversity practices in 1987 when it discovered women and minorities were leaving the company at twice the rate of white

men and that this was costing the company $2–$4 million per

year.24 Their diversity programs successfully cut costs by reducing the attrition rates of white women and blacks. In just

three years, Corning slashed its attrition rates for white

women from 16.2 percent to 7.6 percent, a reduction that

Corning’s executives are convinced has decreased their recruiting and training costs.25

The Air Force stands to leverage the same benefits. Recruiting

and training costs are a significant percentage of the Air Force’s

personnel budget. The Air Force, like the corporate sector,

must constantly fight to prevent its trained people from becoming assets for other organizations. The commercial airlines, in

particular, benefit from the Air Force’s excellent pilot training

programs. The loss of a pilot is costly for the Air Force, not only

in dollars, but also in experience. Consider, for instance, the replacement cost of one pilot. Assuming that pilot graduated from

Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT) (Primary) and

Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (Bomber/Fighter) and

went on to F-16 Basic Training, that individual has cost the Air

Force approximately $3.5 million in pilot training costs alone.26

That does not include such other costs as accession, other training, and permanent change of station (PCS). The experience acquired is virtually priceless. Although the percentage of pilots

who are women is relatively low (421 of 12,007 pilots in the Air

Force), the potential cost savings to the Air Force of retaining

only a handful of those who might otherwise have separated is

substantial.27

Gain/Retain Market Share

Although the Air Force and the military in general are not

fighting specifically for “market share” in the same sense as corporations, they are fighting to recruit from the same populace

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as profit-minded organizations, and they are fighting to retain

the public’s trust in the military as an institution. If the military as an organization is too separate and distinct from the

society it serves, it will have trouble retaining trust and may

have trouble responding appropriately to its civilian leadership. Numerous academicians, political pundits, military officers, and Department of Defense civilians have written recently about a growing gap between the US military and the

society it serves. They worry about the lack of military experience among senior civilian leaders, a growing conservatism and

political activism among military officers, and a loosening of

the bond between military members and American communities. Syndicated columnist George F. Will writes, “It’s a fundamental principle that armed services can truly serve a democracy only if they are a reflection of that society and are impacted

by the same social trends.”28

Concerned about the growing conservatism of the officer

corps, Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks cites surveys that

indicate service academy freshmen are now twice as likely as

their peers at civilian colleges to consider themselves conservative.29 “The shift to the right has been rather remarkable,

even while there has been an infusion of rather more liberal

women and minorities,”30 one of the study’s conductors concluded. This implies that including more women and minorities in the force mix adds a valuable leavening of liberal perspectives, among other essential traits and expertise. None of

the writers quoted here suggests eliminating the gap between

the military and society by making the military a direct reflection of the civilian population. Clearly, that would be impossible and detrimental to the accomplishment of the military mission. However, narrowing the gap is both possible and valuable.

Including more women and minorities in the officer ranks is

one possible way of narrowing the gap. The need for more diversity in the officer corps is especially acute, as former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig points out: “Our military

cannot live apart from our society. That risk is low for our diverse and fluctuating enlisted ranks. It is high for our much

smaller and less representative corps of career officers.”31 Just

as corporations find value and profit in having sales forces and

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DISILVERIO
personnel that reflect the customer base, so, too, can tensions

between the military and its “customer base”—society—be

lessened by acquisition of a more intellectually and politically

diverse officer corps. 

Improved Quality of Management

Retaining women longer in the Air Force will result in an improved quality of management. As women move into the more

senior ranks (O-5 and above), they will naturally supervise

more and more people. Women bring with them a host of abilities and personality types that will strengthen the upper levels

of Air Force leadership and management. In The New Leaders,

Morrison cites several ways that women or other minority

members strengthen the leadership cadres. First, a company

has a greater pool of candidates for leadership positions if it

considers women and minority members. This competition,

Morrison suggests, encourages the majority population—in

this case, white men—to perform better and helps weed out the

less competent individuals. Second, having to manage a diverse pool of employees helps leaders strengthen their people

skills and management abilities. Third, exposure to a diverse

range of colleagues helps leaders develop breadth and openness. A study done by Donald Campbell Pelz demonstrated that

scientists who frequently interacted with an array of colleagues

with different values and backgrounds were the stand-out performers.32 Fourth, the personnel programs and policies adopted

to help change an organization’s culture to be inclusive of

women and minorities frequently benefit all employees.

Women have abilities and characteristics that enhance an

organization’s leadership corps and go beyond the improvements that diversity in general makes to the quality of management in an organization. A large body of research strongly

suggests that women have leadership styles that are intrinsic

and are “better” than the leadership styles commonly displayed by men. It is not the purpose of this paper to debate

whether women or men make better leaders. Rather, this

paper demonstrates that the Air Force needs to work to retain

women longer. To that end, it is enough to show that women’s

leadership styles are no less effective than men’s and that they

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are frequently different than men’s. If one accepts the rationale that different leadership styles are more or less effective

depending on the situation, it should be obvious that a large

organization with a diverse range of activities, missions, and

personnel must benefit from a broader range of leadership

styles.

Citing massive layoffs from a decade ago and the resultant

diminution of employee loyalty, Mark Sappenfield and Julie Day,

writing for the Christian Science Monitor, contend that what organizations need now are “people who create a relationship with

employees and instill in them a commitment to the organization.

Studies have repeatedly shown that this means women.”33 They

go on to cite details from several of those studies. For instance,

a five-year study conducted by Lawrence Pfaff and Associates

showed that more than 2,400 managers in 19 states rated

women higher than men on 17 of 20 leadership skills. Among the

skills on which women scored higher were coaching, planning,

teamwork, empowering employees, decisiveness, and resourcefulness. In a similar study of 58,000 managers, Personnel Decisions in Minneapolis found that women came out on top in 20 of

23 measures of leadership. Janet Irwin and Michael Perrault garnered similar results in their survey of more than 6,400 questionnaires: Women were ranked higher in 28 of 31 management

categories.34 Business Week magazine reviewed a plethora of

management studies such as these and concluded: “After years

of analyzing what makes leaders most effective and figuring out

who’s got the Right Stuff, management gurus now know how to

boost the odds of getting a great executive: Hire a female.”35

These studies will not convince everyone that women are

good leaders. Some will argue that women’s leadership styles

are not essential, may even be detrimental, for what have traditionally been labeled “masculine” pursuits, such as the military, firefighting, or policing. Yet, a study conducted on male

and female police executives had virtually the same findings

as the other studies mentioned above: Women had scores

more closely associated with leadership on five of the measures used by the Dynamic Personality Inventory (DPI) to

measure leadership ability, while men outscored women on

only one trait. The scores for men and women were too close

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DISILVERIO
on the other five traits the DPI measures to differentiate between

the sexes.36 The female police executives outperformed the

men on the following measures:

• Emotional Independence—This trait measures an individual’s need for freedom of movement and for emotional independence.37

• Verbal Aggression—This trait measures both verbally aggressive and intellectually aggressive behavior. It is an indicator of the self-assertive behavior of the individual.

• Social Roles—This trait measures the tendency to seek

social roles and is suggestive of the social adequacy of the

individual. 

• Conservatism—This trait measures the level of flexibility

and the tendency to stick to routine and convention. The

trait is particularly associated with executive performance

since it is an indicator of whether an individual can take

a novel approach to problems.

• Concern with Appearance—This trait measures a positive

self-image and self-confidence.38

That women executives in a traditionally masculine career

more than hold their own against male counterparts is significant. This compilation of studies provides ample proof that

women are as successful in leadership roles as men, even in

traditionally masculine arenas where the management and

employment of deadly force is necessary. That alone should

warrant a push on the part of the Air Force to retain women

longer because it expands the pool of available leadership talent and experiences.

In addition to being effective leaders, many women have a

different leadership style than men. Judy Rosener, writing for

Harvard Business Review, argues that women leaders “are

succeeding because of—not in spite of—certain characteristics

generally considered to be ‘feminine’ and inappropriate in leaders.”39 Rosener characterizes women’s leadership styles as “interactive” and “transformational.” Women, she asserts, work to

encourage participation, boost others’ sense of self-worth, engender excitement about work in others, and share both information and the power that frequently flows from it.40 Others

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have characterized women’s styles as “connective leadership”

and as “democratic or participative.”41 In their review of 162

studies of the leadership style differences between men and

women, Alice Eagly and Blair Johnson of Purdue University

found that the strongest evidence of a sex difference in leadership style was “the tendency for women to adopt a more

democratic or participative style and for men to adopt a more

autocratic or directive style.”42

What does all this mean in terms of its impact on an organization? One thing it means is the potential for retaining outstanding individuals longer in the organization. A key element

of women’s leadership style is the ability to involve others and

to engender loyalty by connecting individuals and their personal

goals to the goals of the group (the Air Force, for example).43

Increasing the loyalty members feel to the Air Force is key in

this era of retention difficulties. Some of the traits women have

which result in their connective or participatory styles include

friendliness, pleasantness, interest in other people, expressiveness, and social sensitivity. Women as a group, when compared to men as a group, are more often described as possessing the above traits.44 Rosener’s research demonstrated

that women work to facilitate inclusion by creating mechanisms that foster participation, by listening, and by conversational styles that invite others to get involved.45

The leadership style described above has its detractors.

Some argue that a more participatory leadership style is at

odds with the military need to issue orders and make instantaneous decisions in moments of crisis. First, participatory

does not mean indecisive. Second, although some women’s

natural inclination may be toward a participatory style, that

does not mean they cannot recognize and act on the need for

adopting an autocratic style. Air Force training, if nothing else,

helps all members internalize the necessity for issuing and

obeying orders. Although others may be tempted to denigrate

what they term a “touchy feely” style, the hard facts prove a

more participatory style breeds loyalty in the new generation

of workers who want to feel like individuals and who have a

variety of lifestyles and needs that more autocratic leadership

styles tend to dismiss or ignore. A large organization cannot

15

DISILVERIO
afford to ignore or alienate any potential source of talent and

hope to remain competitive.

Another benefit of women’s more inclusive style is increased

cohesion and effectiveness of teams. For the Air Force, this

has implications beyond internal processes. In the more connected environment in which national security decisions are

made both within and outside the country—characterized by

increased exposure to the interagency environment, the

United Nations, and coalition nations—women’s team building

style may well gain more acceptance and better results than

men’s more autocratic leadership tendencies. Although men

have for years been celebrated as “team players,” primarily because of their socialization in the dugouts and locker rooms of

team sports, in reality, women’s socialization has prepared

them at least as well for building teams in the real world.

Women’s team socialization revolves around helping others to

achieve their goals, celebrating others’ achievements, and mentoring successors, thus passing on knowledge, power, and

connections.46 That women are more likely to behave this way

does not mean that men do not behave this way; however, men

are less likely to lead in this “relational” style than are women.

Women’s team building skills and social sensitivity are a plus

when dealing with people from cultures other than the Air

Force, whether those cultures are from the State Department,

a nongovernmental organization (NGO), or a North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO)-partner nation. Modern war, as

our experiences in the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, and

Afghanistan have taught us, is likely to be waged in an environment peopled by coalition partners and NGOs. The ability

to forge a cohesive team from elements disparate as to culture

and agenda will be key for future Air Force leaders. Obviously,

the Air Force partners on occasion with nations whose citizens

find it difficult to accept women in leadership roles. No one

leader or leadership style is right for all situations. The

broader the leadership options available to the Air Force, the

more likely the Air Force is to achieve success in a wide variety of situations and missions.

Let me end with a word of caution: If inherently “female” leadership styles are an asset to an organization, the organization

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must take care not to squelch those styles or force everyone

into the same leadership mold. Some danger exists in the Air

Force of women adopting more “masculine” leadership styles,

either because that is what they observe most often or because

those are the styles that reap visible and immediate rewards.

This danger is especially acute since there is a dearth of women

in senior leader roles who can mentor young lieutenants and

captains coming up through the ranks and model leadership

styles that may be different from the norm in the organization.

It is possible that women attracted to military service may,

naturally, exhibit more “masculine” leadership styles than the

average, nonmilitary woman. In either case, the organization

loses out if it implicitly or explicitly rewards only one or a

handful of leadership styles.

Notes

1. SSgt K. Fitzgerald Stewart, “Retention Remains Air Force Challenge,”

Air Force News, 16 August 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, n.d., available from

http://www.af.mil/news/Aug2000.

2. Ibid.

3. David H. McCormick, “The US Military Is Losing the War for Talent,”

The McKinsey Quarterly, no. 3 (1999): 2, on-line, Internet, n.d., available

from http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com.

4. Elizabeth L. Axelrod, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Timothy A. Welsh,

“War for Talent, Part Two,” The McKinsey Quarterly, no. 2 (2001): 1, on-line,

Internet, n.d., available from http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com. 

5. McCormick, 1.

6. Elizabeth G. Chambers et al., “The War for Talent,” The McKinsey

Quarterly, no. 3 (1998): 1, on-line, Internet, available from www.mckinseyquarterly.com.

7. Ibid., 2.

8. Ibid.

9. Elizabeth G. Chambers defines an employee value proposition as senior

management’s answer to why a smart, energetic, ambitious individual would

want to come and work with Team A rather than with Team B. I suggest that

the value proposition, especially for the military, needs to emphasize why a

talented individual would want to stay with the military rather than moving

to the civilian sector.

10. Air Force Personnel Center, “Personnel Statistics: Latest Air Force

Demographics,” n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 November 2001, available from

http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil.

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DISILVERIO
11. Population Reference Bureau, “Ameristat,” n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 November 2001, available from http://www.prb.org/AmeristatTemplate.cfm.

12. National Center for Education Statistics, “Projections of Education

Statistics,” n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 November 2001, available from

www.nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/projections.

13. Ann M. Morrison, The New Leaders: Guidelines on Leadership Diversity in America (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1992), 18.

14. Ibid.

15. Donna Thompson and Nancy DiTomaso, eds., Ensuring Minority Success in Corporate Management (New York: Plenum, 1988), quoted in Morrison, 23.

16. Cathy Trost, “Women Managers Quit Not for Family but to Advance

Their Corporate Climb,” Wall Street Journal, 2 May 1990.

17. Taylor Cox Jr., Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research

and Practice (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1994), 23.

18. Taylor Cox Jr. and S. Blake, “Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness,” Academy of Management Executive, 1991, 45–54.

19. R. Eisenberger, P. Fasolo, and V. Davis-LaMastro, “Perceived Organizational Support and Employee Diligence, Commitment and Innovation,”

Journal of Applied Psychology, 1990, 51–59.

20. Cox, 17.

21. I have relied on Cox’s summary of these research efforts (Cox,

33–36). The full citations for the referenced articles are as follows: R. M.

Kanter, The Change Masters (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983); C. J.

Nemeth, “Differential Contributions of Majority and Minority Influence,”

Psychological Review 93: 23–32; P. L. McLeod, S. A. Lobel, and T. Cox, “Cultural Diversity and Creativity in Small Groups: A Test of the Value-in-Diversity Hypothesis” (unpublished working paper, University of Michigan, 1993);

L. R. Hoffman and N. R. F. Maier, “Quality and Acceptance of Problem Solutions by Members of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Groups,” Journal of

Abnormal and Social Psychology 62.2: 401–7.

22. Air Force Personnel Center, “Personnel Statistics: Latest Air Force

Demographics,” n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 November 2001, available from

http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil.

23. Part of the explanation for the dearth of women at the most senior

ranks is that the number of women receiving commissions 24–34 years ago,

when today’s generals would have been entering the Air Force, was much

smaller than the number of women entering the Air Force today. Additionally, the highest general ranks are predominately filled by fighter pilots, and

women make up a small minority of the fighter pilots in the Air Force.

24. Morrison, 20–21.

25. Ibid., 256.

26. “Representative Officer Aircrew Training Costs,” September 2001, online, Internet, 26 March 2002, available from http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil

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/FMS/65503/34-2.html. The costs break out, in fiscal year 2002 dollars, to

$179,973 for SUPT (Primary), $682,295 for SUPT (Bomber/Fighter), $141,348

for Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals, and $2,532,705 for F-15 Basic.

27. Air Force Personnel Center, 15 December 2001. 

28. George F. Will, “Civil-Military Cultural Gap Widens,” Times-Picayune,

23 November 1998, B5, on-line, Internet, 6 April 2002, available from http:

//www.poli.duke.edu/civmil.

29. Thomas E. Ricks, “The Widening Gap Between the Military and Society,” The Atlantic Online, July 1997, on-line, Internet, 8 April 2002, available

from http:// www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul.

30. Ibid.

31. Richard Danzig, “The Big Three: Our Greatest Security Risks and

How to Address Them” (Syracuse, N.Y.: Maxwell School of Citizenship and

Public Affairs at Syracuse University, 1999), on-line, Internet, 8 April 2002,

available from http:// www.poli.duke.edu/civmil.

32. Morrison, 25–26.

33. Mark Sappenfield and Julie Finnin Day, “Women, It Seems, Are Better Bosses,” Christian Science Monitor 93, no. 35 (16 January 2001): 1.

34. Ibid., 1.

35. Quoted in “Are Women Better Leaders?” U.S. News and World Report

130, no. 4 (29 January 2001): 10.

36. Barbara R. Price, “A Study of Leadership Strength of Female Police

Executives,” Journal of Police Science and Administration 2, no. 2 (1974):

224.

37. Ibid. Price notes that all the explanations of what characteristics in

the personality are measured by a specific trait are taken directly from the

test constructor’s manual. See “Meaning of the Scales: General Principles of

Interpretation,” Supplement 5.

38. Price, 223.

39. Judy B. Rosener, “Ways Women Lead,” Harvard Business Review, November–December 1990, 120.

40. Ibid.

41. Jean Lipman-Blumen, “Connective Leadership: Female Leadership

Styles in the 21st Century Workplace,” Sociological Perspectives 35, no. 1

(1992): 183–203.

42. Alice H. Eagly and Blair T. Johnson, “Gender and Leadership Style:

A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 108, no. 2 (1990): 248.

43. Lipman-Blumen, 184.

44. Eagly and Johnson, 235.

45. Rosener, 120.

46. Lipman-Blumen, 197.

19

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Chapter 2

Why Women Leave

Why a survey? Over the course of my 17 years in the Air

Force, I have—quite naturally—engaged in a number of discussions with both men and women about their experiences in

the Air Force, their aspirations and dreams, and their reasons

for separating or retiring. It struck me that men and women

left the Air Force for different reasons. The preponderance of

women who left the Air Force prior to retirement eligibility—it

seemed to me—did so because they wanted to start families,

rear their children, or minimize the number of separations the

family had to endure. Although I found that men also occasionally separated for family reasons, my observations suggested that men were more likely to leave to pursue other career opportunities or because they were dissatisfied with some

specific aspect of their jobs or careers. Recognizing that policies and programs rarely get changed in response to anecdotes

or “urban myths,” I decided to look for some data on the topic

of retention, specifically retention until retirement eligibility

for men and women.

My first stop was the Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC).

Approximately every three years, AFPC personnel distribute a

United States Air Force (USAF) career decisions survey to individuals who have submitted separation paperwork. Through this

survey, AFPC attempts to determine why USAF personnel are

separating. Reading through the survey, I was surprised to see

that neither “starting a family” nor “staying home to rear children” was listed as a factor that might have prompted an individual’s decision to separate. The second surprise when reviewing AFPC’s survey was that their staff members sort the data

only by officer and enlisted categories. They do not sort or analyze the data based on the gender of respondents.1 When I expressed some surprise that the data is not analyzed by gender,

Charles Hamilton of AFPC’s Survey Branch admitted that it

might be useful to look at the data from a gender perspective. He

21
encouraged me to put together a survey and asked me to make

the data I gathered available to AFPC.2 

Hypotheses

My primary hypothesis as I embarked on this project was that

women separate from the active duty Air Force for primarily

family-related reasons: they want to have children, stay home to

care for them, or provide a more stable home environment. I hypothesized that women separate when the unique demands of

the Air Force conflict too greatly with their role as child care

providers. This conflict is more pertinent to women than men

because women are still the primary child caregivers in our society, even in households where both parents work. The frequent geographic moves required by the Air Force, the long separations and extended duty hours—even during peacetime—

place unique strains on a typical family. Although women are

just as dedicated to their careers and to serving the country as

men, they bear more of the strain of running the household and

caring for the children and must, more often than men, choose

between continuing an Air Force career and having a family. As

one captain put it: “At the time I felt I had to choose my children

or my job. . . . I had a great career. It’s a shame I couldn’t have

done both.”3

Marriage statistics of male and female colonels bear out the

idea that women more frequently have to choose between family and career. More than 95 percent of male colonels are married. Only 67 percent of female colonels are married.4 One respondent to my survey, a reserve lieutenant colonel, also

noticed this discrepancy. “If you look at the women who are

E-8s and E-9s and O-5s and above, many of them are single.

Or if they are married, few have children. It seems like women

who want to make it into the higher ranks have to sacrifice

their personal life for their career. Men who are in the higher

ranks enjoy being married, having a family and having a career in the military.” Without objective data, it is impossible

to ascertain whether this is true for women of equivalent status in the civilian sector. I suspect, however, that the difference in family status is not quite as stark because women in

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civilian positions are unlikely to have to move as often and

are thus able to build support networks to help with child

rearing and family responsibilities. Additionally, civilian employers are more liable to offer flexible work schedules,

telecommuting options, and other programs to reduce the

conflict between work and family. They recognize that a contented, worry-free employee is a more productive employee.

My secondary hypothesis was that the military organizational, “cultural,” climate is less comfortable for women than

for men and that the strains and stresses of operating in a

masculine culture combine with other factors to push women

to separate at an earlier point than men. The mere collection

of data cannot prove or disprove this hypothesis since many

respondents might not be self-aware enough or reflective enough

to pinpoint the organizational climate as a source of stress. Instances of blatant sexual discrimination or harassment would

obviously fall into this category, but other, more subtle factors

also belong here. For instance, language choices (airmen) and

pejorative humor “Head? Who said head? I’ll take some of

that!” send signals of which the individual member may or

may not be aware. The refusal of the military to produce battle dress uniforms in female sizes also sends a signal. I expected the comments on the surveys, more than the objective

data, to reveal support for this hypothesis.

A corollary to my primary hypothesis is that if the Air Force

were to institute programs and policies designed to reduce the

conflict between career and family, it would be possible to retain more women longer. Let me hasten to add that I am not

suggesting the Air Force make efforts to reduce this conflict at

the expense of mission accomplishment. Rather, I submit that

certain program and policy changes could be put in place that

would make the military lifestyle more attractive to all members without decreasing military efficiency and effectiveness.

In some cases, there might even be cost savings or efficiency

gains associated with the new programs and policies. One respondent summed up the conflict quite succinctly: “Almost every

woman I know who separated short of 20 did so for husband/

children/parents/siblings. . . . When family needs conflict

with the rigid Air Force assignment system, the Air Force loses

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DISILVERIO 
every time.” I contend it does not need to be a “win-lose”

proposition every time.

Methodology

In coordination with Air University and the AFPC, I constructed a survey (appendix A) to determine why women left

the active duty Air Force prior to retirement eligibility and

what new programs or policies might have influenced them to

remain in the active duty Air Force. The instrument surveyed

the women on some administrative data, their reasons for

leaving the active duty Air Force, and their reaction to some

possible program or policy changes. Part One of the survey requested administrative data. Part Two offered 10 factors that

may have contributed to women’s decision to separate and

asked them to rate the reasons on a scale of one to five. The

scale measured the criticality of the item to their decisionmaking process. The number one meant the item did not contribute to the decision to leave, and a five meant the item was

crucial to the decision.

The factors break out naturally into two primary groups:

family-related reasons and career-related reasons. The familyrelated factors include

• starting a family,

• staying home with children, and

• spending more time with family (work hours were too long).

The career-related factors include pursuing civilian job opportunities to

• make more money,

• do more fulfilling work,

• move ahead quicker/further in the organization, and

• to work where cultural climate was more accepting of

women (organizations recognized women’s contributions,

sought to retain them, etc.).

The last two factors do not fit easily into either of the above

categories. The desire for greater geographic stability (fewer

moves) could derive from either family or career concerns. The

final factor, dissatisfaction with Air Force leadership, could

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drive a decision to separate even in the absence of family issues or an acknowledged desire to join the civilian workforce. 

Part Three of the survey asked the women to rate possible

program and policy changes on a scale of one to five with one

meaning the change would have had no effect on their decision to separate and five meaning they would almost certainly

have stayed in the active duty Air Force if that policy or program were in effect. I constructed the eight options through

conversations with individuals considering separation and

through research on corporate initiatives to boost retention. It

is important to note that with the single exception of “flexible

programs to support childbirth/nursing,” all of the below hypothetical program or policy changes are nongender specific.

This is deliberate. Advocating for programs that might be perceived as favoring one demographic group over another is not in

the Air Force’s best interests. Such programs would be antithetical to the Air Force ethos and detrimental in the long term. The

possible changes the survey asked the women to rate include

• home basing to give more geographic stability;

• reliable, excellent child care;

• flexible programs to support childbirth and nursing;

• nonpunitive break in service opportunity to allow an individual to leave the active Air Force for one-to-five years to

have children, care for an aging parent, write a book,

complete a graduate degree, and so forth;

• better opportunities for jobs and promotions;

• higher pay;

• flexible job options (telecommuting one day a week, ability to move between active Air Force and Reserves, flextime, etc.); and

• transferable GI Bill education benefits.

During the coordination process for survey approval, AFPC

requested that I append the items from their 2000 USAF Career Decisions Survey on my survey. Thus, part four of the

survey became a list of the items AFPC had previously identified as being factors in separation decisions. The women rated

these factors using the same scale as in Part Two. In total, the

survey asked 64 questions.

25

DISILVERIO 
My original intent was to survey 1,000 women who had separated from the active duty Air Force during the past 20 years.

The AFPC, however, informed me that the legal restrictions on a

USAF member surveying a civilian (i.e., a woman who has separated from the Air Force and not remained affiliated with the

military in any way) are significant. My timeline did not permit

me to pursue the needed permissions from the Office of Management and Budget—a process AFPC said would take at least

four months and would probably not result in approval. Additionally, AFPC would have been unable to provide accurate

name and address data for women who separated from the active duty Air Force without remaining affiliated with the military.

Thus, after consultation with AFPC, I decided to survey women

who had separated from the active duty Air Force and elected to

remain in the Air Force Reserves in some status. It is probable

that excluding women who have completely separated from the

military from the survey pool may have affected the results.

However, it is virtually impossible to quantify in what way the

results may have been affected. It is possible to postulate that

the women who left the Air Force entirely may have been more

inclined than were those in the survey pool to pursue civilian

careers for a variety of reasons—pay, recognition, type of work,

cultural climate. Nonetheless, it is equally likely that the women

wanted to leave the workforce entirely, perhaps for familyrelated reasons. Therefore, although it is important that the

survey pool does not include women who completely severed

their connection with the military, it is impossible to assess

how, or even if, that exclusion affects the results gathered during this survey.

AFPC supplied me with 1,000 names and addresses of officers who fit those criteria.5 I distributed 992 surveys (appendix A) with a cover letter (appendix B) that explained my hypothesis and asked the women to assist me by filling out and

returning the survey. I provided the women with an unstamped, self-addressed envelope in which to return the survey. Due to time and resource constraints, I did not send a

follow-up letter. As it turned out, a follow-up letter was completely unnecessary!

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Results

Of the 992 surveys sent out, I received 560 back completed,

a better than 56 percent return rate. That return rate provides

better than a 99.9 percent statistical confidence level that the

results gathered reflect the views of the entire survey population.

As a point of comparison, Survey Branch personnel at AFPC are

“very happy” if they get a 33 percent return rate on their official

surveys. The Survey Branch’s Charles Hamilton said that even a

50 percent return rate was “unheard of in our business.”6

The volume of returned surveys suggests that the topic resonated with many of the women who have separated from the

Air Force. Their comments on the survey bear that out. “I

never answer surveys,” says one doctor at the Pentagon, “but

I think this one is very important.” Greater than 50 percent of

the returned surveys had written comments on them, sometimes running to two or three typed pages. Although the survey did not request Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) data, the

comments make it clear that women from many different career fields replied: intelligence officers, nurses, doctors, dentists, cops, missileers, pilots, lawyers, maintainers, engineers,

acquisition officers, air battle managers, navigators, and many

others. Women responded to this survey from virtually every

state and many overseas locations, including locations in

Southwest Asia and Guantanamo Bay, where they were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Women who were involuntarily separated from the Air Force,

most of them during the reduction-in-force effort of 1992, returned 12 of the surveys. I excluded their results from the

data because an Air Force-directed separation did not meet

the criteria of the study. Many of the surveys expressed delight

that someone was looking into this topic and wished me “good

luck” with the project. 

Reasons for Leaving the Air Force

Of the women who responded to the survey, the vast majority separated from the active duty Air Force as captains (79

percent) with four-to-eight years of service at the time of separation (65 percent). Figure 3 shows the distribution by rank

27

DISILVERIO 
and time in service of the respondents. Sixty-six percent of the

women were married at the time they separated, and a quarter

of the respondents were single.

Somewhat surprisingly, in view of my hypothesis, 61 percent of the respondents had no children when they made the

decision to separate. Figure 4 shows the breakout of respondents by marital status and the number of respondents who

had zero to more than four children at the time of separation.

In terms of why women chose to separate from the active

duty Air Force, the data bore out my primary hypothesis. More

women chose to separate for family-related reasons than from

the desire to pursue careers in the civilian sector. Twenty-four

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1%

5% 14%

80%

Lieutenant

Captain

Major

Lt Colonel

<4 yrs

4-8 yrs

9-12 yrs

13-16 yrs

Percentage of Respondents by

Rank at Separation

Percentage of Respondents by

Time in Service at Separation

15% 4% 17%

64%

Figure 3. Percentage of Respondents by Rank and Time in Service at Separation

9% 25%

66%

Single

Married

Divorced

No children

1 child

2 children

3 children

4 children

Percentage of Respondents by

Marital Status

Number of Children

at Separation

3%

2%

13%

21% 61%

Figure 4. Percentage of Respondents by Marital Status and Number of Children
percent of the respondents said that wanting to start a family

was either a critical or significant factor in their decision to

separate. Twenty-seven percent indicated that wanting to stay

home with their children was a critical or significant factor,

and 41 percent cited the need to spend more time with their

families as a critical or significant factor in their separation decision. Only 8 percent cited child care availability as a critical

or significant reason for leaving the active duty Air Force.

Many respondents, in fact, praised the quality of Air Force

child care: “The on-base CDCs [child development centers] are

great,” said one respondent. Another added, “DoD has excellent (superior) child care—it’s the waiting lists and uncertainty

of getting a slot that causes stress.”

In terms of civilian job opportunities, only 12 percent of the

respondents cited wanting to pursue a civilian job to make more

money as a critical or significant factor, with 20 percent, 12 percent, and 11 percent, respectively, wanting to find a civilian job

to do more fulfilling work, move ahead quicker/further, or find

a more accepting organizational climate (table 1). In striking

contrast, 61 percent of all officers responding to the Report on

Career Decisions in the Air Force: Results of the 2000 USAF Careers and New Directions Surveys ranked “availability of comparable civilian jobs” as having a “very strong” or “strong” influence in their decision to leave the Air Force.7 It was the number

one reason officers chose to leave the Air Force.8

Forty-one percent of the respondents indicated a desire for

more geographic stability as key to their decision making, and

27 percent pointed to dissatisfaction with the quality of Air

Force leadership as a critical or significant contributor to their

separation decision. When providing written comments, the respondents mentioned several other factors that influenced their

decision making. Fully 52 percent of the respondents cited

“compatibility with spouse’s career/job” as a critical or significant factor in their decision to leave the active duty Air Force.

Many added that the inability to get a guaranteed joint-spouse

assignment influenced them to leave the Air Force.

By contrast, data from the 2000 Report on Career Decisions

in the Air Force reveal that only 16 percent of all officers cite

“compatibility with spouse’s career/job” as having a “very

29

DISILVERIO 
strong” or “strong” influence in their decision to leave the Air

Force.9 Other reasons cited include wanting to attend graduate

school, write a book, or care for ill parents or special-needs

children. Not being able to cross-train into other career fields

or receive job-specific training were also factors, as were a lack

of mentoring and being passed over for promotion.

For the women who responded to my survey and cited a family-related reason as the primary factor in their decision to

leave the active duty Air Force, time away from family—both

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Reasons for Leaving the Air Force % Critical/Significant

Factor

% Not a Factor

Start a family 24 60

Stay home with children

27 61

Spend more time with family

41 40

Child care

8 80

Civilian jobs (more money) 12 67

Civilian jobs (more fulfilling work) 20 61

Civilian jobs (move ahead) 12 72

Civilian jobs (better cultural climate) 11 70

Geographic stability 41 42

Dissatisfied with AF leadership 27 42

Table 1

Reasons for Leaving the Air Force
because of long work hours and frequent temporary duty (TDY)

or deployments—was a major factor. “I miss the cameradery

[sic],” writes one woman, “but not the long hours. I worked with

fantastic people, for the most part, however we worked long

hours and trying to find time with family was difficult.” Although the Air Force has taken steps with the implementation

of the Expeditionary Aerospace Force to make absences more

predictable, the perception is that individuals still spend too

much time deployed and may even be spending more time at

the office when not deployed. “I love the people,” writes one Reserve nurse, “and working with professionals, but HATE the

hours. 5/12s [five twelve-hour shifts] a week is too much for

anyone.” The burdens on the typical Air Force couple or family

are further exaggerated when both individuals are active duty

members. “Dual active duty top performers see their kids for 1-

11

⁄

2 hours a day max,” says a woman who separated in 1992.

Moving too frequently and the subsequent rebuilding of support networks were also common stressors that led to separation decisions. Support networks are even more crucial in

the military environment with its frequent deployments and

TDYs than in a more static corporate environment, and the

military’s penchant for moving people often makes the building and sustaining of those networks difficult. One respondent

writes of the difficulty of finding quality child care and making

arrangements for children who are ill and cannot attend their

usual school or day care. “With every new assignment, one of

the first things I do is try to line up people who can take care

of my kids when they’re ill and can’t go to school because I

can’t always stay home with them. But you don’t want to leave

your kids with just anybody and it takes time to find someone

you can trust. Just when I find someone the kids like and I

trust, the military moves us again.” This theme is repeated often

in the surveys, as respondents point out the time-consuming and stressful nature of finding new dentists, hair stylists,

schools, veterinarians, and churches. The following comments

are typical of those written by women who said that lack of geographic stability was a critical or significant factor in their decision to separate from the active duty Air Force.

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DISILVERIO 
• “The main reason I got out is I wanted to give my family

the stability of living in one area.”

• “The main reason for separating was to settle down in one

location with our growing family. PCS moves are tough

with a lot of kids.”

• “Moving so much cut relationships or opportunity for relationships for me.”

• “I owe the AF alot [sic] for making me the person I am

today . . . however, there has to be a trade-off here. For

some people, it’s money or benefits. In my case, it’s keeping my family together (I’m talking peacetime here). My

family helps keep me grounded and sane in the midst of

the unpredictability of military life.”

• “My personal priority became offering a consistent ‘homebase’ for my husband, so I could at least see him when he

wasn’t flying. If homebasing would have been offered to

me by the AF, I definitely would have accepted it.”

It is difficult to determine why women separated to pursue

civilian careers or why others left for family reasons because

far fewer of them provided comments on the surveys. Additionally, this may be an area where the inability to survey

women who have separated from the Air Force completely has

impacted the results. However, for the roughly 12 percent of

the women who said pursuing job opportunities was a critical

or significant reason for separating from the active duty Air

Force, the issue of control over their careers seemed to be

paramount. “I like that I control my life now,” writes one

woman now working in the civilian sector. Another individual

writes, “Didn’t like the cut-throat competitiveness and control

the leadership had over my career. Felt I had also no control

over job choices.” “Having control over my career was the

biggest reason I left,” writes a third woman. For the most part,

these women offer no comments as to whether they are able to

exercise more control over their careers in the civilian sector.

One woman, however, writes, “I am quite satisfied with my decision to separate. I now teach middle school and am completing a [sic] MA in Administration. . . . When I was on active

duty I was first an SP [Security Police officer] then Personnel.

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There was never a sense of completion, just the same old stuff.

Now I can be creative, and at the end of each class I can see

the fruits of my labor.”

Several women also cited the desire to use skills they did not

think the Air Force was capitalizing on: “The #1 thing the AF

could have done to keep me is to allow me to work in a position that I had the skills to do vice things being rank-based.

Basically, I loved active service, but was going to have to wait

another 3–5 years to do a job that I would qualify easily for in

the private sector.” A civil engineering captain says, “My whole

job was just additional duties. I did no civil engineering work.

I had 0% job satisfaction. Major factor for separating.” Along

the same lines, some women were frustrated when they were

moved up into leadership/managerial positions due to their

rank. “Not everyone is a natural leader. I’m not. I know that. . . .

It’s not something I aspire to, and I’m sure I’m not alone. But

I do not consider myself a failure. I have made some very valuable contributions to the Air Force through less-visible but

dedicated efforts. What’s so wrong with simply wanting to

serve your country?” That theme emerged several times in the

survey comments. “My career goal is to be a practicing nurse,”

writes one woman, “just like a pilot who does not want to fly a

desk. I don’t want to lead/command a hospital or clinic, I want

to practice.” As this woman implicitly points out, frustration

with being moved from a “doer” role to a “leader” role is not

limited to one career field or one gender.

A variety of other reasons also propelled women from the Air

Force into the private sector, ranging from their desire to pursue personal goals to a mismatch between career expectations

and reality, to their frustration with the “glass ceiling.”

• “Want to be more of a woman than the AF culture encourages.”

• “Wanted to pursue art-based career not available in AF.”

• “My reasons for leaving active duty were simple: I was

planning for a challenging career in systems procurement

and instead was put in a SAC [Strategic Air Command]

motor pool.”

• “Lack of opportunity for advancement.”

• “No strong female role models.”

33

DISILVERIO 
• “I wanted to be in an environment where the abilities of

women were recognized and opportunities were present

regardless of sex. I also wanted to have the ‘glass ceiling’

factor removed for both the day-to-day job aspects and

the educational aspects. I wanted to be in an environment

that supported women.”

One factor that did not push women from the Air Force into

the private sector was pay. One software engineer’s comments

were atypical: “As a technical person in the software engineering field the timing was key to me leaving active duty Air Force.

I was able to triple my salary and greatly improve my living

conditions.” More commonly, women pointed out that they

were actually paid more in the Air Force than in their civilian

jobs. This seems to be significantly different from the male experience where men leaving the Air Force do so in the expectation of receiving a higher paycheck. The 2000 Report on Career Decisions in the Air Force found that only 6 percent of the

company grade officers and none of the field graders expected

to make less in the civilian sector than in the military. Fully

19 percent of the company grade nonpilots and 60 percent of

the company grade pilots expected to earn at least $50,000

more in a civilian job than in the military.10

“Dissatisfied with quality of AF leadership” was tied with

“wanted to stay home with children” as the third most significant factor in women’s decisions to separate prior to retirement eligibility. Twenty-seven percent of the women surveyed

said that dissatisfaction with leadership overall was a “critical”

or “significant” factor in their separation decision. Sixteen percent called “leadership at MAJCOM/HQ USAF level” a “critical” or “significant” factor, while 21 percent cited “leadership

at the unit level” the same way. Interestingly, these figures are

somewhat lower than the figures from the 2000 Report on Career Decisions in the Air Force. For all officers responding to

that survey, 31 percent cited “leadership at wing or equivalent

level” as a “very strong” or “strong” factor in their decision to

leave, while 27 percent cited “leadership at MAJCOM/HQ

USAF level.”11

For women, harassment and discrimination issues played a

role in their dissatisfaction with leadership. Surprisingly, this

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FAIRCHILD PAPER
seemed to be just as true for women who separated within the

last 10 years as for women who separated much earlier. One

comment from a woman who separated in 1996 pointed to the

“good ol’ boy network” as a problem in today’s military. “I saw

many times the good ole boy system at work—I felt women had

to work twice as hard for the same recognition, ratings, special

considerations etc. as my male counterparts.” Another woman

echoed that view: “[I] saw too many of the wrong things getting

rewarded in the exclusive good-ol’-boy club.” Another woman

complained about “2 commanders in a row with very subtle/

non-provable bias against women in AF.” A woman who separated in 2001 continued this theme: “My last boss drove me

out—biggest male chauvinist pig I’ve ever met.” A lieutenant

who separated in 1992 cited her social actions case against a

lieutenant colonel as the primary reason. She says, “When

women are discriminated against, they shouldn’t be treated as

a criminal when they won’t stand for it.” A captain from Maryland says her number one reason for leaving was “gender discrimination in my career field—substantiated—boss was even

disciplined!”

Others had more generic misgivings about the quality of Air

Force leadership. “There are far too many unethical, immoral

activities the leadership participates in, turns a blind eye to or

encourages. I am disgusted with the quality of leadership in

the military,” writes one woman. Another condemns leaders’

self-promotion: “The entire system is set up to reward squarefillers, brown-nosers, and self-promoters, not truly talented,

able people who dare to take risks. The ‘one mistake’ AF is a

huge mistake!” One former missileer and now DOD contractor

thinks Air Force leadership has descended to the lowest common denominator: “I think the missile ‘checklist’ mentality has

dummy’d down our folks. Not sure why leadership has followed.” Many women cited a dearth of mentoring as a severe

leadership lack: “My career field eats their young,” says one

woman from an unidentified AFSC. “My leadership—unit and

higher—did NOTHING to mentor/protect me from that.” A

woman from one of the medical career fields relays a particularly poignant story about the effect of poor leadership:

35

DISILVERIO 
My father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. While I was able to get

a humanitarian reassignment 300 miles away from my father’s house,

I was only able to see him a couple of times due to the inflexible scheduling. In fact the day he died, I worked my entire 8 hour shift (I had

told everyone that he was being taken to hospice that day, so they were

all aware of the situation) and no one offered to let me leave early to

see him before he died. . . . By the time I got home, my Dad was dead.12

The comments about leadership were not all negative. Several women lauded the excellence of Air Force leadership and

compared it favorably to leadership found in the civilian world.

One woman remarks, “If Reserve leadership had the integrity

of senior leaders found on active duty I’d be happier.” Although this paper does not propose any means of addressing

the dissatisfaction with leadership issues, I thought it was important to include the above perspectives.

Other than in the leadership arena, there are several retention-related lessons to be learned from the data collected by

this survey. First, the Air Force can focus its retention efforts

on decreasing the conflict between having/caring for families

and fulfilling military duties rather than on making the military look attractive in comparison to civilian opportunities.

The Air Force has historically been focused on the latter, perhaps because men are more likely to respond to increases in

pay and allowances. For instance, the Air Force distributes to

all personnel a yearly document that highlights the value of

Air Force pay and benefits. My research suggests that such a

document is not very useful as a tool for retaining women. I

am not intimating the Air Force discontinue the practice of

distributing that information; I am pointing out that the Air

Force needs to recognize that the tools and practices that help

retain men may not be as effective at retaining women. Second, for the most part, increases in pay or bonuses are not significant motivating factors for women. Only 4 percent of the

women said pay and allowances were a critical factor in their

decision to separate from the active duty Air Force. More

women (6 percent) cited the opportunity for education and

training as a critical reason for separation than cited pay and

allowances! Clearly, the Air Force needs to look beyond remuneration issues to lifestyle and job satisfaction issues when

crafting programs to retain women. 

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Retention Measures

This section discusses the rankings of the proposed retention measures. See table 2 for a summary of retention measure rankings. The following chapter discusses possible implementation of some of those measures.

Of the eight proposed programs or policy changes offered on

the survey, “Availability of flexible job options (telecommuting

one day a week, ability to move between active Air Force and

Reserves, flextime, etc.)” emerged as the program change most

likely to retain women. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents

said they “probably would have stayed in the AF” were flexible

job options available, and 27 percent said these options would

have had a “significant impact” on their decision making.

Equally significantly, only 12 percent of the women said that

this retention measure would have had “no impact” on their decision to leave the active duty Air Force. The comments revealed

that the flexible job option most desired by far was the ability to

37

DISILVERIO 

Table 2

Effects of Retention Measures

Retention Measures

% Probably

Stayed or

Significant

Impact

% No

Impact

Home basing 38 29

Child care 18 57

Childbirth/nursing programs 21 59

Break in service (nonpunitive) 58 20

Better opportunity for jobs/promotions 32 34

Higher pay 23 38

Flexible job options/active vs Reserves 64 12

Transferable GI Bill benefits 16 62
move between the active duty Air Force and the Reserves. Almost

no comments referred to the telecommuting or flextime options.

The second most popular retention measure, the “Nonpunitive break in service opportunity,” is fairly similar to the

first option. “A break-in-service program would have worked

best for me, but the Air Force (at least in 1998) did not honor

the Family Leave Act (12 weeks nonpaid time off). If they had

recognized the Family Leave program, I may have stayed,”

writes one captain from Virginia. An equal number of women

(37 percent) said such an opportunity probably would have

kept them on active duty, while 21 percent said a nonpunitive

break in service would have had a “significant impact” on their

decision making. Essentially, the ability to move between the

active duty Air Force and Reserves and the opportunity for a

nonpunitive break in service meet the same needs. They give

members the ability to deconflict their personal/family lives

and their careers on either a short- or a long-term basis. Those

with short-term conflicts (need to care for a terminally ill parent, desire to get a graduate degree, religious requirement to

serve a year as a missionary, etc.) gravitate toward the nonpunitive break in service opportunity. Those with longer term

conflicts, primarily the desire to rear children to school age,

are attracted to the option of moving between the active duty

Air Force and Reserves. Both programs offer the Air Force a

stellar opportunity to retain quality men and women, enable

better manpower planning, boost members’ loyalty, and capitalize on training investment.

The third most popular option was home basing because it

offers the most stability geographically. Sixteen percent of the

women surveyed said they probably would have stayed in the

active duty Air Force if a home-basing program were available.

Twenty-two percent said a home-basing option would have

had a significant impact on their decision making. The Air

Force already offers some home-basing options for the enlisted

corps. It is time to see how such a program might be implemented for the officer corps, as well.

Of the possible changes listed on the survey, “transferable

GI Bill education benefits” offers the least impact as a retention measure. Only 16 percent of the respondents said that

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FAIRCHILD PAPER
benefit probably would have made them stay or had a significant impact on their decision making. Further, 62 percent said

it would have had no impact. Somewhat surprisingly, “Availability of reliable, excellent child care” and “Flexible programs

to support childbirth/nursing” received only lukewarm support in comparison to the other measures, with 18 percent

and 21 percent of the women, respectively, saying those programs would have convinced them to remain in the Air Force

or would have had a significant impact on their decision making. The comments suggest that many women feel the Air

Force already provides excellent child care and reasonable

programs to support childbirth and nursing. Many women revealed, however, that they think a six-week maternity leave is

far too short. 

Rather contradictorily, given earlier comments and analysis,

23 percent of the respondents say “higher pay” would have

kept them in the active duty Air Force or significantly impacted their decision making. Drawing from the fact that not

very many women cited pay and allowances as a reason for

leaving the Air Force (only 4 percent) and considering the comments on the survey, I tend to discount somewhat the incentive value of higher pay for women. Essentially, I think no one

objects on principal to the concept of higher pay for themselves, and the rankings indicate it would have more value as

a retention tool for women than is, in fact, the case. 

In sum, women who leave the active duty Air Force prior to

retirement eligibility do so primarily to spend more time with

their families and fulfill family responsibilities but also for opportunities in the civilian sector. Thus, the retention measures

most likely to keep them in include those that help deconflict

family and military responsibilities. The next chapter discusses these measures in more detail.

Notes

1. Air Force Personnel Center, Report on Career Decisions in the Air Force:

Results of the 2000 USAF Careers and New Directions Surveys (Randolph Air

Force Base [AFB], Tex.: AFPC, 30 November 2000).

2. Charles H. Hamilton, AFPC Survey Branch, interviewed by author,

n.d.

39

DISILVERIO 
3. This paper contains numerous direct quotations from the survey and

statistics calculated from the survey answers. These quotations and statistics

are given in the text but most have no note citations. The original survey materials are retained in the author’s personal collection.

4. These statistics from AFPC might be interpreted in other ways. Perhaps women who embrace an Air Force career are less inclined than the

general population to want a husband and family. Perhaps women executives of an equivalent standing in civilian corporations are equally as unlikely to have families as the military women. I suspect, however, that for the

majority, it is just too hard to fulfill family and military duties, and they are

forced to choose. Male military members usually are not forced to choose because a greater percentage of them have stay-at-home or noncareer-oriented

spouses who take care of household and child responsibilities. See Directorate of Personnel Operations, Headquarters Air Force Personnel Center,

“Personnel Statistics Website—Officer Demographics,” n.p., n.d., on-line, Internet, available from http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/demographics.

5. I only surveyed officers because the focus of the study is on retaining

women who are in a position to achieve the rank of general and be among

the Air Force’s senior leaders. Additionally, a greater percentage of women

attain the highest enlisted rank, chief master sergeant, than even attain the

rank of colonel.

6. Charles H. Hamilton, E-mail to author, 2 February 2002.

7. I will be using the results of this survey, Air Force Personnel Center,

Report on Career Decisions in the Air Force: Results of the 2000 USAF Careers

and New Directions Survey (Randolph AFB, Tex.: AFPC, 30 November 2000),

as a comparison point to show the differences between male and female reasons for separating from the Air Force prior to reaching retirement eligibility. This survey is not an ideal instrument for drawing comparisons because

it combines men’s and women’s results; thus, the percentages in the text

also represent women’s responses. However, of the 3,886 officers who responded to this survey, the likelihood is that only 10–12 percent were

women, so the results reflect primarily the male bias. AFPC has acknowledged the need to break out the data by male-female on future surveys.

8. Report on Career Decisions, 35.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 10.

11. Ibid., 35.

12. A significant number of the comments about poor leadership came

from women in the medical career fields. “AF nursing leadership is hit or

miss, mostly non-existant [sic],” reports one woman. This might be an area

for further investigation.

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Chapter 3

Usefulness and Feasibility of

Retention Measures

The Air Force does not want to retain everyone. Some people

do not adapt well to military life, some have disciplinary or

quality force issues, and some are not competent. The Air Force

evaluation and promotion systems do a pretty good job of

weeding those people out. The Air Force also cannot retain

everyone. One response from a woman in New Mexico makes

that clear: “There is nothing the Air Force could have done to

make me stay in. It is just more important to me to raise my

children to be good citizens.”1 Others leave because the Air

Force cannot pay them as much as Delta or American Airlines

does for the same skills. That still leaves a sizable body of Air

Force members who are “on the fence” about staying in the Air

Force or separating. Some of them ride that fence for years;

others make a clear commitment to the long haul or jump off

the fence into (supposedly) greener pastures.

It is the fence riders that the below retention measures target. The Air Force needs to tap into what turns a fence rider into

someone willing to commit for the long haul. I suggest the answer lies in boosting an individual’s loyalty to the Air Force by

helping the individual to deconflict personal and professional

responsibilities. “Service before self” is a value most Air Force

members embrace wholeheartedly. “Service before family”—

especially during peacetime—is more difficult. “Service instead

of family” drives people out. An old saying suggested, “If the

Army had wanted you to have a family, it would have issued

you one.” Since 71.5 percent of Air Force officers have families, that view is outdated and dangerous to military retention

and effectiveness.2 Families give people stability. They give

them the love and support that help them deal with crises at

work. They give them the incentive to fight and die, if necessary, to preserve our culture and way of life. The Air Force has

a vested interest in helping its members nurture their families. 

41
The following retention measures meet that goal. Of the

eight suggested retention measures, this paper addresses in

some detail the options with the greatest potential impact on

retention—nonpunitive break in service, the opportunity to

move between the active force and the Reserves, and home

basing. Such measures as childbirth and nursing programs,

although of lesser impact, are easier to implement and are

covered briefly. Higher pay is not a feasible option and would

not, in any case, significantly increase the retention of women

and thus does not merit discussion here. Transferable GI Bill

benefits, while relatively easy to implement, does not have

enough retention impact to warrant discussion. Better opportunity for jobs and promotions received some support from the

women surveyed (table 2), but is connected to the leadership

issues mentioned earlier and is beyond the scope of this paper.

This paper does not attempt to work out all the details of the

suggested programs. It provides a rough outline for further development and implementation by personnel specialists and

others involved in manning and force structure fields.

Home Basing

Home basing involves assigning a military member to the

same base or location for an extended period of time. In the Air

Force enlisted assignment system, individuals can apply for

home basing following the completion of a short tour. In other

words, they can ask for an assignment back to the base where

they were assigned before departing for the short tour. If approved, the home-basing program conceivably allows members and their families 8–10 years at the same location, with

only a year for the member overseas. The program is known as

the Base of Preference or Follow-On Assignment Opportunity.

MSgt Jerry Tapia, chief of Training Issues and Procedures in

the Airmen Assignments Branch at AFPC, stated that his office processes, on average, 500 applications a month for this

program. The office approves 93–94 percent of the requests.

The effects of this program on retention are unknown, however, because the Air Force did not institute it to encourage

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reenlistment, according to Master Sergeant Tapia, and has not

measured its effects on retention.3

The program is not currently available for officers. Officers,

however, are interested in home basing. Of 3,795 officers completing a 1999 AFPC survey about home basing, 83 percent

overwhelmingly liked the concept. The majority of personnel

(76 percent of officers) would want to remain at a home-base

location for 5–12 years.4

The potential benefits of home basing are many. It gives the

member and family the opportunity to develop roots in a community and a support network. I contend that having a semipermanent support network probably reduces absenteeism by

cutting stress and giving families options during illness or crisis. For instance, if a child is ill and cannot go to school, someone in the support network may be able to care for the child,

freeing the member to go to work. Also, in the event of a death

or other crisis in the family, having friends, neighbors, and familiar clergy will reduce stress for the effected individual, allowing the member to return to work sooner and be more productive. The Air Force reaps benefits beyond the reduction in

stress for its members and the subsequent decline in absenteeism. Home basing cuts permanent change of station costs

because individuals do not move as often. Currently, the average PCS cost associated with moving an officer within the continental United States is $11,215. Moving that same officer to

an overseas assignment costs $17,387.5 The Air Force stands

to save up to $51,000 per officer by reducing the number of

moves by two or three over the course of an officer’s career.

Additionally, it has the potential to build some valuable continuity at the base. The member can acquire a level of expertise

in 8–10 years that is not possible in a three to four year assignment, even if the job switches during that time.

The home-basing initiative as I envision it has six primary

tenets.

• Home basing should be made available to eligible officers

after their first operational (nontraining) assignment. To

be eligible, the individual must have acceptable performance reports and no negative quality force indicators.

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• Home basing should be designed to retain people through

the 12-year point, after which separation declines probably due to financial losses incurred through sacrificing retirement benefits.

• The Air Force should specify, perhaps by career field,

which bases are open for home-basing assignments.

• The officer may be asked to take a remote tour, or a nondesirable tour, to qualify for home basing, similar to the

system currently in effect for enlisted personnel.

• Officers should understand that in time of war, they are

vulnerable to assignment as and where the Air Force

needs them.

• The Air Force should specify some factors that would be

grounds for terminating home-basing assignments, including base closures or loss of authorizations.

The two most common arguments against instituting a

home-basing program for officers include needs of the Air

Force and career progression. Clearly, the Air Force cannot afford to limit its assignment flexibility relative to individuals so

that it impacts Air Force mission accomplishment, nor can it

afford to hamstring officer development programs so that officers have no breadth or depth of experience. Neither of those

negative consequences has to result from a properly implemented home-basing program for officers. The program, as

outlined above, will be available only for a selected part of an

officer’s career, from roughly the four-year point to the 12-year

point. Further, not all officers will be interested in home basing. Both of these factors limit the potential negative effect on

assignment flexibility and officer development.

Recent changes in Air Force structure and organization

make it easier to implement a home-basing program. The drawdown of the 1990s and the subsequent base closures have resulted in the colocation of many echelons of command and

many different unit types at single bases. This trend of base

consolidation is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as

the fielding of such weapons systems as the B-2 makes overseas bases less necessary and as the cost—both monetary and

political—of keeping overseas bases open continues to rise.

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Some bases have every echelon of command from squadron to

major command (MAJCOM). Several others go from squadron

to numbered air force with a variety of field operating agencies

or direct reporting units also colocated. There are ample opportunities at these bases for individuals to gain breadth and

depth of experience, even to career broaden, in line with the

Developing Aerospace Leaders program construct. For instance, following completion of intelligence training, an intelligence officer could strart her operational life in an F-15

squadron at Langley, move to the wing as she pins on captain,

serve as an executive officer to a general as a midlevel captain,

and then work a programming job at Air Combat Command

headquarters as a senior captain or junior major. Or, an F-16

pilot’s first assignment could be to a squadron at Kunsan Air

Base, Korea, a remote tour. He could then enter the homebasing program with a follow-on to Hill, where he could serve

in a squadron, and then any number of group- or wing-level

positions. By the time these officers are ready for Air Staff or

joint staff experience, their home-basing tours would be completed, and they would have considerable depth in their primary AFSC, as well as some breadth, if required. There are

many possibilities.

A home-basing program for officers has significant potential

as a retention tool. Home basing will accomplish the dual

goals of helping to decrease the family-career conflict many officers experience and provide the Air Force sufficient flexibility

for assigning people to meet mission requirements and officer

development needs. Additionally, it will allow for a significant

cost savings on PCS moves. The Air Force has nothing to lose

and much to gain by investigating this concept in more depth.

Sabbatical/Break in Service Opportunity

Surveyed members expressed significant support for a nonpunitive break in service option as a retention tool. A break in

service is not a completely new concept. The Air Force has allowed individuals to leave the service and return, but it is not

done routinely, the return is not preplanned, and the returning members frequently find themselves looked at askance by

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promotion boards. Such a system offers few advantages to either the individual or the Air Force. I propose two separate

systems, each offering the advantages of helping to retain

qualified, talented individuals; giving the Air Force more flexibility and lead-time for manning decisions; and reducing costs

for accession and training. The first plan, a one-year paid sabbatical, would allow individuals with short-term conflicts who

need time away from their careers to cope with personal issues:

caring for a terminally ill parent, finishing a graduate degree, or

bearing and nursing a baby. The second plan would allow for

a one- to five-year preplanned break in service, unpaid, to

cope with such longer term conflicts as raising children to

school age, doing charity/missionary work, interning in the

corporate world, or allowing a spouse to pursue career goals.

Existing programs within the Air Force attempt to alleviate

some of the conflict between careers and personal lives but

are not sufficient. These programs include emergency leave,

humanitarian reassignment, convalescent leave, and educational leave of absence. Emergency leave allows an individual

to be absent from the duty station for up to 60 days to deal

with an urgent personal situation and is sufficient only for a

short-term, resolvable situation. Humanitarian reassignment

is designed to help members who have a family member that

needs extraordinary support of one kind or another. It places

the member at the closest location to the family member who

needs support. Unfortunately, that may still be several hundred miles away from the family member, and the individual

is still responsible for Air Force duties. Convalescent leave

supports the member with personal health problems and is

not charged as leave to the member. Finally, the educational

leave of absence is a program requiring secretary of the Air

Force approval. It allows a member to pursue an educational

program for up to two years, while still receiving basic pay.

The payback is two months for each month’s absence. According to Mary Lee Baker, an Air Staff expert, the program is

rarely used.6 This may be because few people have heard of it

and not because members are not interested in such an opportunity. I randomly questioned 20 Air War College classmates,

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FAIRCHILD PAPER
and none were familiar with the program or knew it was available.

The corporate and academic worlds are well ahead of the

military in designing sabbatical or leave of absence programs

to help retain their personnel. Educational institutions have,

for years, offered paid sabbaticals as incentives to their qualified professors. The corporate world is following suit. In a survey of 754 companies with an average of 1,600 employees, the

Society for Human Resource Management found that 19 percent offered a paid sabbatical.7 As the Air Force fights to win

the war for talent, it must optimize the benefits it offers to

compete with the civilian sector. And, as the surveys demonstrate, members value the opportunity of time away from the

job more than they value the prospect of a higher paycheck. 

The keys to success for both the one-year sabbatical and the

long break in service are pre-planning and guaranteed return of

the member. The Air Force may or may not want to specify what

kinds of reasons qualify for approval of the sabbatical or the

break in service. Both programs would require an approval

process involving the MAJCOM and AFPC. For the sabbatical,

the affected unit would also be in the approval chain. Additionally, the requesting member must have served a first term of

commitment to qualify for the sabbatical, must have satisfactory evaluations, and must have no negative quality force indicators. The payback for the paid sabbatical would be similar to

the payback for educational opportunities in the Air Force: three

months’ commitment for every one month away.

The apparent drawback to this plan is cost. However, it is

not as costly as it first appears, especially when one factors in

the cost of recruiting and training a replacement for an individual who separates. Let us consider one example. Captain

Wong, a 13S1/space and missile officer needs a year off to

care for a mother dying of cancer. She submits her paperwork

for a year’s paid sabbatical through the appropriate channels

and AFPC approves it. At her own cost, she returns to the

town where her mother lives and nurses her until she passes

away, settles the estate, and returns to the Air Force after

eight months. During that time she has received her base pay

with no allowances and has not accrued any leave. The eight

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DISILVERIO 
months have cost the Air Force $29,584 in base pay. By retaining Captain Wong, the Air Force has saved the $33,758 it

cost for her initial skills training as a space and missile officer,

as well as the $230,000 her Air Force Academy education

cost.8 The Air Force also benefits from additional savings in

terms of experience, upgrade training, and professional military education.

The break-in-service program would have a similar structure.

Individuals must serve at least eight years to qualify for a

guaranteed-return break in service, have good evaluations, and

have no negative quality force indicators. That ensures people

taking advantage of the program are the ones the Air Force

wants to retain—quality performers with a history of service and

commitment. While there would be no payback for the break in

service, per se, the individuals’ retirement date would slip by the

number of months they were away from the Air Force. To ensure

their return, they would be required to sign a contract departure, promising to return on a specific date. The delayed entry

program contract might be a model. Accrued retirement benefits are the hook that would persuade members to sign such a

contract. After an absence of one to five years, the members

would start where they left off in terms of rank, promotion opportunity, and retirement benefits.

For instance, if Captain Garcia took three years off to raise

her two-year-old twins to school age, she would sign a contract agreeing to return on 1 September 2005. Until then, she

receives no pay or allowances (unless she enters the Air Force

Reserve, as discussed in an earlier section). Knowing she is

going to return, the Air Force can adjust its recruiting numbers and assignment process to reflect her availability in 2005.

Upon her return, she has the same number of years of time in

service and time in grade as she did upon her departure, as

well as the same amount of accrued leave and retirement benefits. The Air Force benefits by decreased perturbation in the

accession and assignment processes. Even more significantly,

the Air Force benefits by not losing 10 years worth of accrued

experience and training, even if Captain Garcia needs a refresher course to renew her skills when she returns. 

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Permeability of Active-Reserve Barrier

Changing the nature of the relationship between the active

duty Air Force and the Air Force Reserve Component (ARC) offers significant opportunity for long-term retention of talented

individuals in the active force. The procedural changes to accomplish this are challenging enough; the attitude changes

may be insuperable. However, the reasons for making such a

change go well beyond encouraging retention. Although this

paper’s purpose is not to design a new structure for the Air

Force Reserves, a brief look at the forces driving changes in

the ARC and some possible aspects of its restructure are appropriate. Changing the relationship between the active force

and the Reserves entails a new way of thinking about how our

forces are composed and structured. This kind of organizational change, to my mind, offers as much opportunity for a

revolution in military affairs as any technological innovation.

Two primary factors converge to make the first decade of the

twenty-first millennium the right time to change the way the

Air Force manages its human resources.

First, the nature of warfare is changing. The increasing globalization of the world connects the United States with other

countries in ways we never imagined. We can no longer drop a

bomb in a seemingly insignificant country without feeling the

reverberations at home. The media amplifies the shock waves,

and the vibrations have the potential to shake up our economy,

our reputation on the international scene, and our military/

diplomatic alliances. Witness the effect of bombing the Chinese

embassy in Belgrade. Dropping hot burning metal on target

may no longer be the most effective way of prevailing in a conflict, at least not in all instances. Advances in information warfare (IW) make possible attacks against enemy centers of gravity that are potentially crippling and nonattributable. In the nottoo-distant future, IW capabilities may call into question the

need to maintain large kinetic forces for use against any but

noninformationalized targets. (Noninformationalized countries

may be to the twenty-first century what nonindustrialized countries were to the twentieth century.) The nature of warfare is

also changing in that conventional force-on-force engagements

between nation-states have been superseded, for the moment,

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DISILVERIO 
by asymmetric warfare against nonstate actors. The global war

on terrorism (GWOT), which President George W. Bush says will

last for years, is the prime example.

Second, this war on terrorism is revealing weaknesses in the

way the Air Force is organized and structured. The vast majority of our airlift and tanker assets reside in the ARC. The

nation has tasked these assets heavily in our fight in

Afghanistan, putting a huge burden on our ARC and Air National Guard personnel. The burden extends beyond the individuals themselves, and even beyond their families, to their

employers and the economy. Since most reservists and Guard

personnel have full-time careers in the civilian sector, their deployment in time of conflict has many repercussions. If the

whole nation mobilized for war, the existing structure might

work better because employers would understand and applaud their Reserve employees’ absences. In the current situation, however, the initial support for the GWOT must begin to

fade as employers feel the pinch in their purses. The reservists

themselves are also feeling pinched. They may leave in large

numbers at the first opportunity, unable to tolerate the strain

on their professional and private lives. If the GWOT goes on at

its current tempo for even another year, never mind another

three to five years, the Air Force will have to find another way

to manage its personnel resources.

Restructuring of the relationship between the ARC and the active force is part of the solution to some of these problems. The

Air Force needs to do a hard assessment of what functions belong in the ARC as it currently exists. Additionally, the Air Force

needs to take advantage of the huge advances in computer and

communications technologies to enable large parts of the Reserves, and possibly the active force, to work from geographically

separated locations. The Reserves have a policy that allows

telecommuting on a case-by-case basis. But this policy does not

capitalize on existing technologies by creating virtual Reserve

units or other elements. No serious doctrinal thought or innovative ways of doing business underpin the existing policy on

telecommuting.

Finally, the Air Force needs to allow for transfer of personnel from the active force to the Reserves and back again.

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The increased integration enabled by such a mechanism would

have significant advantages. It would be a potential means of retaining the talented and experienced individuals the Air Force

should want to keep. Allowing members to move from the active

force into the Reserves for up to four years might give them the

opportunity to complete graduate school, write a book, care for

terminally ill parents, have a baby, or gain some experience in

a new skill while remaining an Air Force asset that could be

tapped in time of war. In short, integration would have many of

the same advantages as the one-year sabbatical and break in

service, with the additional benefit of providing the member with

some contact with his or her career field and training during the

time away from the active force. Additionally, it would create the

opportunity for a reservist to move into an active duty slot for

up to four years, as they are now eligible to do by way of Title

10 tours. However, this program would require a longer leadtime, thus enabling better force planning, as the example that

follows illustrates.

Captain Smith, a communications officer, wants to move

from the active force to the ARC for two years to obtain a graduate degree. A year in advance of leaving his current position,

he obtains approval through his chain of command and AFPC.

AFPC searches its files and contacts appropriate personnel

currently serving in the ARC to determine whether they can

backfill for Captain Smith. Six months later, Captain Smith

goes off to Harvard and begins working on weekends with his

Reserve unit. Captain Jones in-processes at Captain Smith’s

old office. This serves the needs of the unit, the Air Force as a

whole, and the two individuals. Captain Smith attains his personal goal of a master’s degree from Harvard, and the Air Force

benefits from his expanded worldview and improved thinking

abilities when he returns. Captain Jones receives updated

training and experience with an operational unit that will better prepare her to fulfill wartime responsibilities. The unit has

continuous coverage of Captain Smith’s position.

Breaking down the barrier between the active force and the

Reserves integrates the “whole force” more seamlessly, giving

folks primarily involved with the active Air Force the opportunity

to experience the Reserves and become familiar with the

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concerns and issues of reservists and giving reservists better

opportunities for training and operational experience. Since

the Reserves and Guard make up one-third of our Air Force

capability, all senior leaders should spend a tour in one or the

other.9

Finally, allowing more movement to and from the Reserves

would help remove some of the perception of the Reserves as

“second class citizens.” Several of the survey comments speak

to this perception; the reservists do not think they get sufficient

opportunity for training and development.10

Several barriers prevent implementing this proposal. The

active force and Reserve pay, evaluation, and promotion systems need to be aligned. Additionally, the personnel experts

need to devise a formula for calculating retirement points and

years for all members. The formula should account for a mix

of active and Reserve time. Maj Gen Robert McIntosh, the Reserve advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said

in an interview that the Air Force has been investigating a

concept incorporating similar ideas. Unfortunately, the next

update on the study team’s progress is not due until two

weeks after this writing.11 The effort would be well worth it. A

true “whole force” concept as proposed above provides better

manning flexibility, more depth and breadth of experience

throughout the whole force, better standardization of training

and experience, better understanding of all force elements,

and improved retention.

Childbirth/Nursing Programs

Childbirth is a natural event in the lives of many women. Air

Force professionals are no exception. Yet, many Air Force supervisors and leaders penalize women, usually in subtle ways,

for becoming pregnant. They certainly do not offer enthusiastic support for the pregnant member. Additionally, the Air

Force system as a whole seems nonplussed when a woman becomes pregnant. The Air Force immediately offers the woman

the opportunity to separate without penalty, as if pregnancy

were on a par with some permanent, disqualifying medical

condition. Unsubstantiated rumors abound about women

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getting pregnant to avoid distasteful assignments or deployments. Pregnancy, in most cases, can be planned by both the

individual and the Air Force. Such planning can minimize impacts to readiness and mission accomplishment. The impacts

to morale, readiness, and retention caused by the Air Force’s

posture related to pregnancy are mostly avoidable through the

implementation of common sense policies and programs and

education of supervisors and members at all levels. 

First, the Air Force should discontinue the practice of almost automatically letting pregnant women separate. The perturbation in the manning and assignment systems caused by

unanticipated separations is significant. There is no medical

reason for granting an automatic separation, anymore than

there is a medical reason for letting a man separate because

he broke a leg. Both broken legs and pregnancies are temporary conditions.

Second, the Air Force needs to build and launch a campaign

to educate supervisors at all levels about pregnancy and the

likely impact to the individual and the unit. Dispelling myths

about pregnancy and readiness should be a key part of such

a campaign. Supervisors should be encouraged to provide

support to the individual, not to treat her with morale-impacting

“favoritism” or pretend she is not pregnant. If a medical reason exists for curtailing certain duties, the supervisor and

commander need to be fully informed.

Third, the Air Force, perhaps assignment personnel and commanders, should encourage women to discuss their pregnancy

plans and try to time assignments around pregnancies, or vice

versa. For instance, I volunteered for a remote assignment to

Korea as a senior lieutenant to receive credit for a remote

assignment before starting a family. I also know several women

who planned their pregnancies to coincide with professional

military education assignments to avoid impacting the operational mission. Obviously, the Air Force cannot dictate when or

if a woman becomes pregnant (although it might consider having women pilots sign an agreement not to get pregnant for five

years after completing pilot training). Equally obvious, assignments cannot always—or even usually—be worked around

pregnancies; however, with appropriate mentoring, women may

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DISILVERIO 
be more inclined to work their pregnancies around assignments

to the benefit of the individual and the Air Force. Perhaps this

should be an item for discussion during feedback sessions. 

Fourth, the Air Force should encourage women to breastfeed. Medical personnel, commanders, and other mentors

should make this a priority. A plethora of research documents

that breast-fed babies get sick less often than babies who are

bottle-fed. The highly respected American Academy of Pediatrics and American Dietetic Society both endorse breast-feeding

to the one-year point.12 Additionally, breast-fed babies incur

fewer health care costs. Since the Air Force is paying for family

member health care, it has a vested interest in encouraging

breast-feeding. It is impossible to quantify how much money the

Air Force might save each year if 50 percent more new mothers

breast-fed their children for six months. An article in the US Department of Agriculture publication Food Review reports:

Given that breast-feeding decreases the incidence and/or severity of

specific illnesses in infants, it may significantly defray or reduce health

care costs. An economic analysis of the health care savings of breastfeeding and formula feeding would be complex. Several of the illnesses

that breast-feeding and formula feeding purportedly affect are chronic,

with costs and savings that could accrue over several years and, in

some cases, over a lifetime.13

Encouragement of breast-feeding, however, needs to extend

beyond lip service or a briefing from a nurse about the value

of breast-feeding. Supervisors need to make it clear that they

support members who breast-feed their children. The easy

availability of lactation rooms for expressing milk is important,

and these are becoming more plentiful around the Air Force.

More important, however, are clear signs of support from

those in the chain of command. Too often, women are discouraged from expressing milk for later use by nasty looks or

pointed comments about “wasted time” by supervisors.

Finally, the Air Force needs to revisit its policy on maternity

leave. The breast-feeding habit is just becoming established at

the six-week point (when Air Force women have to return to

work). An additional four weeks of maternity leave, or part-time

maternity leave, provide an opportunity for mother and baby to

master breast-feeding and may make a mother more comfortable

leaving her baby with a child care provider. Numerous comments

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on the surveys indicated that six weeks is not sufficient maternity leave. One captain with a young son writes, “The military only allows six weeks [of maternity leave] and then a

mother may try to take some additional leave, but it is not

guaranteed. In the civilian world, it is law to allow three

months of unpaid leave—and for good reason.”

Commanders, supervisors, and mothers-to-be need to be

creative and plan ahead for maternity leave. The four weeks

after the initial six weeks might involve the mother coming to

work for a few hours each day or accomplishing work at home.

Telecommuting is an option that allows for work and breastfeeding to coexist peacefully in the first few weeks after delivery. If the individual does not normally do work that lends itself to telecommuting, perhaps she could be trained on tasks

that are compatible with telecommuting before going on maternity leave. Work and new motherhood are not mutually exclusive. I know: I delivered my second child 10 weeks after taking command of a squadron. I had prepared my operations

officer to run the squadron, and I worked on evaluations,

awards, and other documents from home. My orderly room

staff made a run out to my house once or twice a week for signatures or to discuss issues. The squadron ran like clockwork.

Other women who’ve had children have found different methods that worked equally well. Lt Col Carla Gammon, a navigator, said she “threw money at the problem.” She employed a

nanny to care for her children while she worked a very demanding job on the Air Mobility Command staff. No single approach will work for all units or all new parents. The Air Force

must encourage creativity and flexibility in this arena.

The revisions dealing with childbirth outlined above call for

more than a new Air Force instruction or policy letter. They require an attitude change. That will not happen overnight. Senior leaders need to lead the way and demonstrate by their

talk and actions that pregnancy is natural and desirable

within the context of the Air Force family. Reducing the stress

on Air Force mothers also reduces the stress on their husbands, who are frequently Air Force members as well. Commanders and pregnant members can plan for pregnancy and

virtually negate the impact on mission accomplishment. The

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DISILVERIO 
Air Force can create more loyal members and more productive

members by reshaping its policies related to childbirth and

nursing. Policy changes and an education campaign will help,

although effecting a true attitude change will take years.

Notes

1. This paper contains numerous direct quotations from the survey and

statistics calculated from the survey answers. These quotations and statistics are given in the text but most have no note citations. The original survey materials are retained in the author’s personal collection.

2. Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC), “Personnel Statistics: Latest Air

Force Demographics,” n.p., on-line, Internet, 28 November 2001, available

from http://www.afpc.randolph.af.mil.

3. MSgt Jerry Tapia, chief of Training Issues and Procedures in the Airmen Assignments Branch at AFPC, Randolph Air Force Base, Tex., telephone interview with author, 29 March 2002.

4. “AFPC Announces Home Basing Survey Results,” Release N. 013, 25

January 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 26 March 2002, available from http://

www.afpc.randolph.af.mil/pahistory/release/2000/02/homebasing.

5. “Permanent Change of Station Cost per Move,” n.p., on-line, Internet,

August 2001, available from http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMC/65503/24-1.

html(3/26/02).

6. Carla Gammon and Margaret McCord, “Building Retention Today for

a Better Air Force Tomorrow,” unpublished Air War College (AWC) paper,

January 2002, 6–7.

7. Toddi Gunter, “The Pause that Refreshes,” BusinessWeek, 19 November 2001, 138, on-line, Internet, n.d., available from http:// www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_47/b3758112. I am indebted to Gammon

and McCord for pointing me to this source.

8. “Officer Initial Skills Training Costs,” on-line, Internet, 28 March

2002, available from http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMC/65503.

9. Perhaps serving with a Guard or Reserve unit for a year should be a

requirement for senior leadership, along the same lines as the requirement

to serve in a joint billet as the Goldwater-Nichols Act dictates.

10. Frankly, the overall effect of the comments on the surveys caused me

to wonder just how equal a force the Reserves are. Four women spoke of

having been passed over—twice—for promotion to major and then being

promoted two grades or more in the Reserves. Leadership/officership standards must be the same for the Reserves to have the credibility they need.

How can an individual not be suitable for promotion to major in the active

force and still be deemed promotable in the Reserves? Other comments

about training and job experience also gave the impression that standards

are different in the Reserves. This may be an area for further investigation.

56

FAIRCHILD PAPER
11. Interview question of Maj Gen Robert McIntosh asked in AWC Seminar 15; and General McIntosh, E-mail to author, 28 March 2002.

12. Jon P. Weimer, “Breastfeeding: Health and Economic Issues,” Food

Review 2, no. 2 (May–August 1999): 31.

13. Ibid., 33.

57

DISILVERIO 
Conclusion

Sometime during the next 10 years, the Air Force will pin four

stars on a woman. That will be a magnificent achievement for

both the new general and the Air Force. With each such a milestone reached, the Air Force will find it easier to recruit and retain talented people and accomplish its mission effectively and

efficiently. Talented individuals from across the demographic

spectrum will look at the Air Force and see the opportunity to

serve their nation to the best of their abilities. A few institutional

changes can set the ball rolling.

Changing institutional attitudes is hard. Changing institutional culture is even harder. And yet, this paper calls on the

Air Force to do both. It encourages a new way of looking at the

value of diversity within the Air Force, which necessitates cultural changes in how we treat people. It is no longer enough—if

it ever were—merely to allow people from certain demographic

groups to wear Air Force blue and give them the same paycheck

others of the same grade receive. The institution as a whole

must embrace them and, yes, adapt its culture to fully capitalize on the talents of each and every Air Force professional.

The ability to adapt is the key to survival and success.

This paper also calls on the Air Force to look beyond technology in its search for a revolution in military affairs. To adapt

a popular bumper sticker: “Technology doesn’t win wars—

people do.” Organizational structures and personnel practices

offer equal opportunity for truly revolutionizing the way we

fight and win wars. The changes to the relationship between

the active and Reserve forces suggested here are the tip of the

iceberg. Although they may go a long way toward mitigating

some personnel losses (which is, after all, the primary focus of

this paper), they are only the beginning. Further changes to the

active-Reserve force mix and employment strategies have the

potential to substantially expand the pool of talent available to

the Air Force and revolutionize the way the United States imposes its political will. But that is a topic for another paper.

During the next 10 years, the United States will resolve the

Global War on Terrorism, employing all the instruments of

national power, including the military. The accomplishments

59
of that war will leave no doubt that talent, determination, and

the will to take risks and innovate in pursuit of victory count

in the twenty-first century Air Force. Implementing innovative

retention practices involves little risk and may make future

victories easier and less costly.

60

FAIRCHILD PAPER
Appendix A

Survey on Separation/Retention

of Air Force Women

USAF SCN 01-121

Section One/Administrative

1. How many years of AF service did you have at separation?

<4 4-8 9-12 13-16 17-19

2. What year did you separate from the AF?

3. What was your rank when you separated from the AF?

Airman (E1-E4) SSgt/Tech Sgt (E5-E6) MSgt/SMSgt (E7-E8)

Lt (O1-O2) Captain (O3) Major (O4) Lt Colonel (O5)

4. Did you stay in the AF Reserve?

Yes No

5. What was your marital status when you left the AF?

Married Divorced Widowed Single

6. How many kids did you have when you left the AF?

0 1 2 3 4 or more

7. How many kids do you have now?

0 1 2 3 4 or more 

Section Two/Reasons for Leaving the Air Force

This section attempts to identify some factors contributing to

your decision to leave the AF prior to reaching retirement eligibility. The following scale measures the criticality of the item

to your decision-making process with 1 meaning the item didn’t

contribute at all to your decision to leave and 5 meaning the

item was crucial to your decision. Please use the below scale

to evaluate each of the factors.

61
1 (Not a factor) 2 (Slight factor) 3 (Somewhat of a factor)

4 (Significant factor) 5 (Critical factor)

8. Wanted to start a family

9. Wanted to stay home with children

10. Wanted to spend more time with family (hours were too

long/too many deployments or remote assignments)

11. Couldn’t get adequate child care

12. Wanted to pursue civilian job opportunities to make more

money

13. Wanted to pursue civilian job opportunities to do more

fulfilling work

14. Wanted to pursue civilian job opportunities to move ahead

quicker/further in the organization

15. Wanted to pursue civilian job opportunities where cultural climate was more accepting/embracing of women (recognized their contributions, sought to retain them, etc.)

16. Wanted more geographic stability (fewer moves)

17. Dissatisfied with quality of AF leadership

18. Other__________________________________________________

Section Three/Retention Measures

This section lists some program, policy, and cultural changes

the Air Force could institute. Would any of them have effected

your decision to leave the Air Force? In other words, had any

of these programs been in place when you separated, might

you have decided to stay in the AF until retirement? Please

rank them using the below scale, with 1 meaning the item

would not have effected your decision at all and 5 meaning

you would almost certainly have stayed in the AF.

1 (No impact) 2 (Slight impact) 3 (Some impact)

4 (Significant impact) 5 (Probably would have stayed in the AF)

19. Home-basing (more geographic stability)

62
20. Availability of reliable, excellent child care

21. Flexible programs to support childbirth/nursing

22. Non-punitive break in service opportunity (you can leave

the AF for 1-5 years to have children, care for an aging parent,

write a book, etc., and return at your former rank)

23. Better opportunity for jobs, promotions 

24. Higher pay

25. Availability of flexible job options (telecommuting one day

a week, ability to move between active AF and Reserves, flextime, etc.)

26. Transferable GI Bill education benefits (i.e., you could use

your education benefits for your kids)

27. Other__________________________________________________

Please provide any written comments, to include other programs the AF could institute to retain women, your satisfaction with your decision to leave the AF, and what you miss

most about the AF since your separation. 

Section Four/USAF Career Decisions Survey Questions

The Air Force surveys members who plan to separate to determine their reasons. For standardization purposes, if you have

time, please rate the following factors to indicate how great a

role they played in your decision to separate from the Air

Force. Some of these items overlap slightly with the factors in

Section Two, but none addresses exactly the same issues.

Please use the 1-5 scale from Section Two:

1 (Not a factor) 2 (Slight factor) 3 (Somewhat of a factor)

4 (Significant factor) 5 (Critical factor)

28. Amount of additional duties

29. Availability of comparable civilian jobs

30. Home station TEMPO (work schedule)

31. Choice of job assignment

32. Stay in base of assignment

63
33. TEMPO away (Number/duration of TDYs)

34. Retirement program that effects you

35. Leadership at MAJCOM/HQ USAF level

36. Availability of dependent medical care

37. Number of PCS moves

38. Unit resources

39. Leadership at wing or equivalent level

40. Number of personnel in my unit

41. Availability of medical care

42. Implementation of Expeditionary AF

43. Overall job satisfaction

44. Pay and allowances

45. Geographic area/current base

46. Recognition of your efforts

47. Compatibility with spouse’s career/job

48. Leadership at unit level

49. Availability of dependent dental care

50. AF officer/enlisted evaluation systems

51. Readiness of your unit

52. Training/experience of unit personnel

53. Availability of dental care

54. Potential for outsourcing and privatization

55. Promotion opportunity

56. Availability of base housing

57. Bonuses/Special pay

58. Job security

59. Opportunity for education and training

64
60. Availability of base exchange

61. Equal employment opportunities in the AF

62. On-base child/youth programs

63. Availability of commissary services

64. On-base fitness recreation programs

65. Patriotism

May I contact you to conduct an interview about your decision

to leave the active duty AF and your feelings about it now? If

so, please provide your name and address/phone number or

E-mail address.

65
Appendix B

Survey Cover Letter

FROM: Air War College (Lt Col Laura DiSilverio)

SUBJECT: Survey on Retaining Women in the Air Force

(USAF SCN 01-121)

Hello!

My name is Laura DiSilverio, and I’m a student at the Air

War College. I’m doing official research to determine why more

women than men separate from the active duty Air Force before reaching retirement eligibility. Although the Air Force Personnel Center conducts separation research, it has not previously separated the responses by male/female. I think it’s

possible that women separate for different reasons than men

do. As part of my research, I’m distributing the attached survey and asking you to please take the time to fill it out and return it to me. It should only take you 15-20 minutes to complete. All answers will be confidential, and my data will be

presented strictly as group data.

My hypothesis is that women are important to the accomplishment of the Air Force mission and that the Air Force

should look at new and innovative ways of retaining women

longer. In addition to determining why more women leave the

Air Force earlier, I’d also like to find out what kinds of programs or policy changes might induce them to stay. Please

help! Please complete the attached survey and return it in the

envelope provided. If it’s easier for you to complete it via Email, so please send me your E-mail address, and I’ll send you

a copy: laura.disilverio@maxwell.af.mil.

To be most useful, I need the survey returned by 15 Feb

02. I’m using the data to prepare a report for Air Force leaders to consider in designing programs and policies to retain

women. Thanks in advance for your help. I truly appreciate

you taking time out of your hectic schedule to complete the

67
survey and help shape future Air Force initiatives related to

women.

LAURA A. H. DISILVERIO

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

68
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73
attrition rates, 10

breast-feeding, 54

Career Decisions Survey, 21, 25

career-related factors, 24

Chambers, Elizabeth, 3

child care, 22, 25, 29–31, 37, 39, 55

civilian employers, 22

conservatism, 11, 14

Corning Incorporated, 10

corporations, 2, 4–5, 10–11

Cox, Taylor, 7

creativity, 7–9, 55–56

critical age bracket, 3

Danzig, Richard, 11

demographics, 1, 9

discrimination, 23, 34–35

diversity, 1, 5–12, 59

employee turnover, 7

family-related factors, 24

geographic stability, 24–25, 29–31

global war on terrorism, 50

harassment, 23, 34

job mobility, 3

job satisfaction, 7, 33, 36

leadership, 5, 9, 11–17, 24, 29–30,

32–36, 42

leadership styles, 12–15, 17

marriage statistics, 22

maternity leave, 55

Morrison, Ann, 5, 9

officer recruitment, 4

pay, 25–26, 34, 36–37, 39, 41–42,

46–48, 52

pregnancy, 52–54

productivity, 5–7

quality of management, 5–6, 12

recruiting, 2, 5–6, 10, 47–48

retention, 1–3, 5–6, 15, 21, 25, 36–39,

41–43, 45, 49, 52–53, 60

revolution in military affairs, 49

Rosener, Judy, 14

small companies, 3

social sensitivity, 15–16

Stanley, Julie, 2

support networks, 22, 31

team building skills, 16

training costs, 10

turnover, 7, 9–10

Wall Street Journal, 7

Will, George F., 11

75

Index
Winning the Retention Wars

The Air Force, Women Officers,

and the Need for Transformation

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Emily Adams

Copy Editor

Lula M. Barnes

Cover Art and Book Design

Daniel Armstrong

Composition and

Prepress Production

Vivian D. O’Neal

Quality Review

Joan Dawson

Print Preparation

Joan Hickey

Distribution

Diane Clark