The federal government has been grappling with equal employment opportunity issues for over 3 decades. A number of laws and executive orders have been promulgated to end discrimination and promote affirmative employment within the federal government. The initial focus of the legislation was on ensuring fair employment practices and nondiscrimination. The attention to affirmative action as a means of addressing the historical underrepresentation of women and minorities in the federal workforce began in the 1960s. Two major pieces of legislation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 and the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, provide the statutory basis for the establishment of affirmative employment and recruitment programs in the federal government. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has primary responsibility for providing federal agencies with guidance on their affirmative action programs and for monitoring and evaluating program implementation. Although affirmative action programs are currently the subject of some review and debate, these laws and programs remain in effect and guided the actions of the agencies we reviewed. This report is one in a series that we have prepared on the federal affirmative employment program for the former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. In May and October 1991, we reported on the federal affirmative employment planning guidance and the representation of women and minorities in the federal workforce. In March 1993 and July 1994, respectively, we reported on the progress of EEO groups in the key job workforces of large and small federal agencies. As agreed with the Committee, the objectives of this study were to determine the representation of women and minorities at the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Navy, and State and changes in the representation levels of these groups, particularly at the upper grade levels and in occupations that lead to those grades; evaluate whether the agencies’ affirmative employment program plans complied with EEOC’s instructions, particularly those that address factors affecting women and minority underrepresentation; and assess the adequacy of EEOC’s and OPM’s oversight of the affirmative employment and recruitment programs. As table 1 shows, the four agencies we were asked to review differed in size, and showed different changes in the numbers of permanent employees in their workforces between 1984, 1992, and 1994. The four agencies also differed in terms of the percentages of their total workforces that were in white-collar and in key white-collar jobs. EEOC defines key jobs as nonclerical occupations with 100 employees or more that are or can lead to middle and senior-level positions. In fiscal year 1992, 88.8 percent of Interior’s permanent employees were in white-collar jobs, and 33.7 percent in key white-collar jobs. 98 percent of Agriculture’s permanent employees were in white-collar jobs, and 52.8 percent in key white-collar jobs. 68.7 percent of Navy’s permanent employees were in white-collar jobs, and 14.8 percent in key white-collar jobs. 42.4 percent of State’s permanent employees were in white-collar jobs. (State’s Foreign Service workforce accounted for 56.7 percent of the agency’s total permanent employees). The analyses presented in chapter 2 address the total, white-collar, and key job workforces at each agency except at the State Department. At State, we examined the Foreign Service workforce in addition to the total and white-collar civil service workforces. To determine the representation status of women and minorities, we compared each agency’s workforce profile with the CLF profile to determine whether the agencies’ workforces were representative of the race, ethnic, and gender groups in the CLF. MD-714 and its predecessors instruct that agencies make this comparison for affirmative employment planning purposes. There are different approaches to determining the appropriate CLF for use in this analysis. The directives encourage agencies to use broad occupational categories—professional, administrative, technical, clerical, other, and blue collar (PATCOB). However, its instructions for the last affirmative planning cycle provided as an alternative the use of occupation specific data. Each approach, as we discussed in a previous report, has advantages and disadvantages. For example, PATCOB categories can be too general if an occupation being compared requires particular qualifications and educational levels. A disadvantage of the occupation specific data is that it may be difficult to find occupations in the CLF that precisely match the agencies’ occupations. For this report, we made two different comparisons against the CLF. First, we analyzed the agencies’ EEO profiles on an overall basis (i.e., all occupations combined) against the national CLF profile. This provided a broad overview of the standing of the different EEO groups in the agencies’ total and white-collar workforces. However, this comparison does not take into account the differences in the agencies’ occupational mixes and the occupational mix in the CLF. Second, we compared key white-collar occupations that agencies had identified in their affirmative employment plans against specific occupations in the national CLF. Our analyses covered 10 different EEO groups—white men and women, black men and women, Hispanic men and women, Asian men and women, and Native American men and women. To assess the degree of representation, we computed representation indexes for overall employment and for key jobs. These indexes were computed by dividing the percentage of each EEO group in each of the four agencies by the corresponding percentage of each EEO group in the CLF and multiplying the result by 100. The indexes can range from 0 to more than 100, with 100 indicating full representation and numbers less than 100 indicating underrepresentation. To the extent an index is much smaller than 100, the underrepresentation is correspondingly more severe. The federal workforce data we used came from OPM’s Central Personnel Data File (CPDF). Our analyses included full-time and part-time permanent employees. CPDF data comes from federal departments and agencies that report to it. We did not verify the accuracy of the CPDF data. Following EEOC’s guidelines, we used the 1990 decennial census CLF data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau as the benchmark for calculating 1992 representation levels. The use of decennial census data for CLF comparisons is a common approach to measuring the representation of EEO groups in the federal government. However, we recognize that census data, like all other existing benchmarks, have strengths and weaknesses. Census-based CLF data are readily available by EEO group to do analyses of total employment and key jobs (e.g., civil engineers, computer specialists). However, the data become outdated with time and may require adjustments to compensate for undercounting of minorities. We did not make adjustments to the census data. EEOC, working with OPM, created a “crosswalk” that matches federal occupations with similar occupations in the decennial census CLF. The crosswalk does not always provide a perfect match between the federal and census occupations, but it is the closest readily available source for making comparisons. We used the crosswalked census occupations for our analysis of agency key jobs. We analyzed changes in representation levels of different EEO groups at two points in time—the end of fiscal years 1984 and 1992. Fiscal year 1984 was the most distant year for which we had complete data and 1992 the most recent data available. To analyze changes in representation over this period, we used a ratio-based approach. The ratio-based technique involves comparing ratios of numbers in differing EEO groups. To determine the change in representation levels between 1984 and 1992 for particular EEO groups, we divided the number of employees in the EEO group by the number of white men in each year and then took ratios of those numbers across the years. The term “relative number” used in this report refers to the number of women and minorities for every 100 white men. White men were selected as the benchmark because they dominated the agencies’ workforces in 1984 and 1992, especially at General Schedule (GS) grades 14, 15, and senior management levels. It seemed reasonable to consider how the numbers of women and minorities had changed over time relative to them. The ratio-based technique is especially useful in comparing relative changes in workforce representation across EEO groups of very different sizes and when the size and growth rates of the total employee population vary during the period studied. We also used this technique to analyze data on hires, separations, and promotions. These personnel events have an effect on the composition of the workforce, and the distribution of EEO groups across grade levels and analyses of these events may provide information to further explain representation trends. For our grade level analysis, we grouped the GS grades as follows: GS grades 1 through 10, 11 through 12, and 13 through 15. We converted the State Department Foreign Service grades to GS-equivalent grades using OPM’s guidelines. Our definition of senior management included employees in the SES, State Department’s Senior Foreign Service, and State Department’s Chief of Mission positions. To address our second objective—agency compliance with EEOC’s instructions—we reviewed relevant statutes, regulations, and EEOC directives. We examined MD-714 and supplemental memorandums issued by EEOC which contain the affirmative employment planning instructions applicable to the period covered in our review. We discussed the affirmative employment planning instructions with former and current officials from EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations in Washington, D.C., and EEOC’s Atlanta and Philadelphia District Offices who are responsible for reviewing and approving agencies’ affirmative employment plans. (The Atlanta and Philadelphia offices had oversight responsibilities over components of the Navy that we reviewed.) These officials described the factors they considered in reviewing and approving plans and provided us with compliance information for the four agencies we examined. We obtained examples of approval letters and other relevant documentation on the approval process. In addition, we independently reviewed the multiyear affirmative employment plans that the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Navy, and State prepared for fiscal years 1988 through 1992 and matched their contents against EEOC’s instructions. To determine whether agencies had analyzed each of the eight program elements as required by MD-714, we talked to agency officials about the affirmative employment planning process.