Retaining Women Air Force Officers: Work, Family, Career Satisfaction, and Intentions

• Author: Christopher Salas-Wright,Erika L. King,Diana DiNitto,David Snowden
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X19845024
• Published date: 01 October 2020
• Date: 01 October 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Retaining Women

Air Force Officers:

Work, Family,

Career Satisfaction,

and Intentions

Erika L. King

1

, Diana DiNitto

1

,

Christopher Salas-Wright

2

and David Snowden

1

Abstract

Despite efforts to improve women’s military representation, mid-career female

officers attrit at twice the rate of male peers. Research and theory suggest women’s

turnover is influenced by family life including marriage and parenthood. But previous

research has grouped women together, failing to extrapolate which factors influence

retention of women with different family types. Thus, this study explored a single

career point (mid-career) at different family intersections (married, unmarried, with,

and without children) to elucidate work and family factors associated with female

officers’ retention decisions. Using 2011 Air Force survey data (n¼1,309),

regression models tested four hypotheses regarding work and family factors asso-

ciated with different subgroups’ military life satisfaction and career intentions.

Findings indicate that after accounting for satisfaction, work factors were insignif-

icant for all subgroups, but family factors (as hypothesized) were significantly asso-

ciated with married women’s career intentions. Results suggest that policies

targeting family support/satisfaction may improve retention.

1

University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

2

Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Erika L. King, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.

Email: erikalee123@yahoo.com

Armed Forces & Society

2020, Vol. 46(4) 677-695

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X19845024

journals.sagepub.com/home/afs

Keywords

family issues, gender issues, recruitment/retention, public policy

Although the Department of Defense (DoD) has expressed ongoing commitment to

improving diversity among its highest ranks, military women continue to be retained

and promoted at lower rates than men (Asch, Miller, & Malchiodi, 2012). Retention

reports suggest that active duty female officers may leave because they were less

likely than their male peers to view the military as a long-term career when they

entered (Military Leadership Diversity Commission, 2011). This short-term career

view may be influenced by women’s perceptions, beginning before they even join

the operational force, that military life is incompatible with their family goals (Smith

& Rosenstein, 2016). Honing in on women’s highest risk time for attrition, former

Air Force Secretary Deborah James repeatedly expressed concern that “mid-career”

female officers exit the military at twice the rate of mid-career male officers and

proposed family-friendly policies to combat this issue (Cunningham, 2015; Olson,

2014; Shalal, 2015).

Congruent with former Secretary James’s perspective, researchers postulate that

mid-career female officers discontinue military service in order to start a family, as

military mid-careers generally fall at the ages when college-educated women begin

having children (26–35 years; Martin, 2000). Studies have also found that difficul-

ties balancing one’s military career with family life (Defense Advisory Committee

on Women in the Services [DACOWITS], 2016), desire to spend more time with

family or to start a family (DiSilverio, 2003), having a child (Pierce, 1998), and

concerns regarding managing dual-career marriages are associated with women’s

decisions to leave the military (DACOWITS, 2017; Keller et al., 2018). Research

also suggests that satisfaction with the military way of life is related to military

members’ career intentions (Lappin, Klein, Howell, & Lipari, 2003) and that work

factors such as organizational support and job clarity impact both military job

satisfaction and retention (Dupre & Day, 2007). Prior research, however, has not

examined both work and family factors’ combined influences on job/career satisfac-

tion and retention for women with differing family types. Thus, the purpose of this

study is to explore work and family life-course intersections to better understand

factors impacting mid-career female officers’ retention decisions.

Theory

A number of theories address family dynamics and retention in the civilian literature,

but a model specific to military women was not developed until 2016. The Con-

ceptual Model of Military Women’s Life Events and Well-Being (Segal & Lane,

2016) was preceded by a gender- encompassing military model (S egal, Lane, &

Fisher, 2015), which was based on decades of military life-course theory work

678 Armed Forces & Society 46(4)