Women are choosing to re-sign their Marine Corps contracts at significantly higher rates than men, according to new data from the Marine Corps Times Service.
Data provided to the Department of Defense National Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Military Service (DACOWITS) in December shows that women serve longer in the military by wide margins than men in most categories, including both non-commissioned officers and officers. according to In the Marine Corps Times. While NCO retention rates were low in the Marine Corps overall, the same pattern of significantly higher retention rates for women was not observed in the remaining services.
In fiscal year 2023, which ends Sept. 30, the reenlistment rate for first-time female Marines was 35%, compared to just 28% for men, Marine Corps Times reported. For Marines in their second term, statistics showed that 43% of men reenlisted and 47% of women chose to remain. Overall, the re-enlistment rate in 2023 was 33% for women and 28% for men. (Related: Marine Corps to eliminate women-only unit amid pressure from Congress to accelerate gender integration)
By 2022, that number will be 32% for first-term female Marines, compared to 24% for first-term male Marines, and 46% for second-term female Marines, compared to 41% for men, the report said. This trend is reflected all the way back to her 2019 fiscal year, with data decreasing and the gap seemingly not closing.
According to the Marine Corps Times, male Marine officers choose to remain almost as often as female officers, but data going back five years shows there is still a gap. In 2023, 90% of female executives will choose to remain in office, while 88% of male executives will choose to remain, a slight decrease from 92% women and 90% men in 2022.
Although the Marine Corps is working to prioritize older, more experienced Marines, enlisted retention rates remain relatively low when combined with other services. This is primarily due to strict operational requirements.
However, it remained the only service with a high retention rate for women. The Army, Navy, and Air Force also provided data to the Department of Defense on women in their military service in December. The Army does not provide data on officers, but overall in 2023, 80.4% of women reenlisted, compared to 77.1% of men.
Additionally, as of 2023, the Air Force's noncommissioned officer retention rate was the same for both men and women at 88.68%, but the retention rate for male officers was 90.71%, barely exceeding that of female officers, Marine Corps Times reported. In the Navy, 86.5% of male NCOs re-extended their contracts, compared to 84.8% of female NCOs, who remained 0.4 percentage points higher than their male counterparts.
Recruits from Lima Company, San Diego's first integrated training class, march through the mud during The Crucible on April 21, 2021 at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
According to the Marine Corps Times, a Marine Corps spokesperson said that an internal study found no significant differences in the reasons men and women cited for leaving the military.
Maj. Daniel Phillips told the magazine, “There has been research in the past on retention rates, although not specifically on higher retention rates for women.” “His one of our human resource modernization efforts will allow us to catalog and analyze historical research on human resources in the near future.”
“There's very likely a self-selection bias going on,” Kailian Hunter, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and a former Marine Corps pilot, told Marine Corps Times. “Are the women who do participate the ones who are more likely to stay involved because they have to go through already high barriers to entry?”
The Marine Corps did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content produced by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan news distribution service, is available free of charge to legitimate news publishers with large audiences. All republished articles must include our logo, reporter byline, and DCNF affiliation. If you have any questions about our guidelines or our partnership, please contact us at licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
