Women in the Military

More Military Jobs Can Be Opened Under Current Statutes Gao ID: NSIAD-88-222 September 7, 1988

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed issues relating to job opportunities for women in the military services, to determine how: (1) combat exclusion policies affected the number and assignment of women in the military; and (2) military procedures unrelated to combat exclusion limited job opportunities for women.

GAO found that the: (1) military services excluded women from about 1.1 million jobs based on combat exclusion policies and related program needs; (2) services further limited the number of certain noncombat jobs that women could hold based on their job availability policies; (3) Marine Corps distributed some unrestricted noncombat jobs equally between men and women; (4) Navy limited women to no more than one-half of the unrestricted noncombat pilot positions; (5) Air Force limited the number of new pilot and navigator openings available to women; (6) Army limited the number of women it recruited and the availability of jobs to women; and (7) size of the berthing areas on noncombat Navy ships prevented women from filling sea duty positions open to them.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.