The Achilles Heel of Recruiting Women: Perceived Gender Equality as a Key Determinant of the Military’s Employer Attractiveness Among Women

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211035818
• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Date: 01 October 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211035818

Armed Forces & Society

2022, Vol. 48(4) 936 –960

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211035818

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Article

The Achilles Heel of

Recruiting Women:

Perceived Gender Equality

as a Key Determinant of

the Military’s Employer

Attractiveness Among

Women

Timo A Graf

1

and Gerhard Kuemmel

1

Abstract

The German Bundeswehr, like other NATO forces, seeks to recruit more women in

order to improve its gender balance and to meet its personnel needs. However,

previous research on military recruitment has paid little attention to women. Given

that the (German) military is still a male-dominated organization, we argue that

women’s opinion regarding the realization of gender equality in the military may very

well be the Achilles heel of recruiting women. Based on the assumption that women

value gender equality in the work environment, we test the hypothesis that women are

more attracted to the military as a (potential) employer, the more they think the

military has achieved gender equality. A multivariate analysis of nationally represen-

tative survey data from Germany from 2019 provides empirical evidence to support

this hypothesis. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Keywords

gender equality, military recruitment, employer attractiveness, Bundeswehr

1

Military Sociology, Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr, Potsdam, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Timo A Graf, Military Sociology, Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr,

Zeppelinstr. 127/128, Potsdam 14471, Germany.

Email: timograf@bundeswehr.org

Graf and Kuemmel 937

The Achilles Heel of

Recruiting Women:

Perceived Gender Equality

as a Key Determinant of

the Military’s Employer

Attractiveness Among

Women

Timo A Graf

1

and Gerhard Kuemmel

1

Abstract

The German Bundeswehr, like other NATO forces, seeks to recruit more women in

order to improve its gender balance and to meet its personnel needs. However,

previous research on military recruitment has paid little attention to women. Given

that the (German) military is still a male-dominated organization, we argue that

women’s opinion regarding the realization of gender equality in the military may very

well be the Achilles heel of recruiting women. Based on the assumption that women

value gender equality in the work environment, we test the hypothesis that women are

more attracted to the military as a (potential) employer, the more they think the

military has achieved gender equality. A multivariate analysis of nationally represen-

tative survey data from Germany from 2019 provides empirical evidence to support

this hypothesis. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Keywords

gender equality, military recruitment, employer attractiveness, Bundeswehr

1

Military Sociology, Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr, Potsdam, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Timo A Graf, Military Sociology, Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr,

Zeppelinstr. 127/128, Potsdam 14471, Germany.

Email: timograf@bundeswehr.org

The German military has always been a male-dominated organization and it remains so

to this day, despite the advancement of legal gender equality and the integration of

women into the armed forces. We argue that women’s opinion regarding the realization

of gender equality in the military may very well be the Achilles heel of recruiting

women. Until 2001, women were permitted to join the Bundeswehr as soldiers only in

the medical corps (since 1975) or in the music corps (since 1991) as the German

constitution precluded women from military service that entailed the use of weapons for

reasons other than self-defense. As a consequence, in 2000 only around 4600 female

soldiers served in the Bundeswehr, the overwhelming majority in the medical corps.

This changed with the young female electrician Tanja Kreil who, at the age of 19,

applied for a job with the Bundeswehr in the f‌ield of maintenance. Her application was

rejected with a reference to the above-mentioned constitutional restraints. She thus

went to the courts and argued that her application had been rejected for reasons of

gender, which violates European Union law that prescribes gender equality at work.

That is why the German Administrative Court in Hanover turned the case over to the

European Court of Justice, which, on January 11, 2000, decided in favor of the plaintiff

and required the German Government to act in accordance with European Union law. In

the following months, Germany changed the above-mentioned provision in its con-

stitution and implemented the full-scale opening of the Bundeswehr for women to start

in January 2001. Since then, women can serve voluntarily in all branches and functions

of the German armed forces, including combat roles (Kuemmel, 2002). By September

2020, the number of female soldiers in the Bundeswehr has increased to 22,800 or 12%

of the entire military personnel (BMVg, 2020)

1

—slightly above the NATO average of

11% (NATO, 2018, p. 18).

These numbers will likely continue to grow as the Bundeswehr intends to recruit

even more women. There are various reasons for this. First, the Bundeswehr is

committed to gender equality and seeks to combat the underrepresentation of women

among its military personnel (BMVg, 2019). Second, after more than a decade of

downsizing and cost cutting, the Bundeswehr intends to increase its military personnel

from 184,000 currently to 203,000 by 2025 in an effort to meet current and future

challenges to Germany’s national security and vital interests (BMVg, 2018). Third, the

female population has become particularly important as a human resources pool since

military conscription was suspended in Germany in 2011 and the Bundeswehr turned

into an all-volunteer force, making it generally more diff‌icult to recruit and retain

suff‌icient numbers of (male) service personnel. Fourth, the recruitment environment

has become even more challenging in recent years as the German economy has re-

covered from the 2008 f‌inancial crisis, leading to a low unemployment rate and a “war

for talents”on the labor market.

2

Finally, demographic change is expected to lead to a

signif‌icant reduction of the working age population by 2030, affecting men dis-

proportionally (Apt, 2014). In this context, the German ministry of defense has

identif‌ied women as a critically important recruitment population (BMVg, 2016, p. 11).

Beyond the narrow recruitment and retention considerations of the military orga-

nization, the integration of women into the armed forces and the equal treatment of

2Armed Forces & Society 0(0)