IMPROVING THE GENDER COMPOSITION OF THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS THROUGH MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY CROSSWALK EXAMINATION

Abstract

To aid USMC efforts in gender representation across its organization, I first develop a crosswalk of Marine Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) to civilian Standard Occupational Codes (SOC). I then employ hedonic regression methods to determine the effects of skills and abilities required to perform Marine occupations on the proportion of females in that job. The hedonic analysis proposes an empirically justified potential upper bound of female representation for USMC gender integration goals. The civilian labor market is essentially a free market where individuals can choose their occupation with arguably lower barriers to entry than the military. Yet, civilian female representation remains low in the occupations that map to previously gender-restricted MOSs, with female representation hovering at or below 5 percent. In addition, the marginal effects of skills and abilities required for job performance tend to further restrict the female representation level expectations. While there may be a desire to increase female representation across the USMC as a whole, the aggregate adjusted female representation level of the occupational fields is only 8.82 percent. This data can provide realistic expectations for gender integration goals, as I predict that female representation will remain lower than the related civilian occupation.