Women ‘Less Available’ to Do Jobs, AF Asserts

The Air Force has released a study designed to convince Congress that it does not need higher recruitment goals for women, saying women are “less available than men to perform their primary jobs” because of pregnancy and child care.

The study, distributed to Congress last week, concludes that there are some additional Air Force jobs for enlisted personnel that should be opened to women. Air Force Secretary Verne Orr has agreed and more than 800 additional jobs are being opened to women, the service said.

The Air Force also used the study to say there is no reason to fear for the future of the all-volunteer force.

But the study also asserts that overall readiness could be hurt by an emphasis on meeting higher female recruiting goals. It complains that the Air Force cannot change the qualifications and interests of young men and women or the biological reality that it is women who get pregnant.

“Increasing the number of women in the Air Force could increase the total enlisted manpower requirement and manpower costs, because women are less available than men to perform their primary jobs,” the study states, citing the demands of pregnancy and child-rearing.

It said, “Women in general reported they are less able to respond quickly to deployment requirements than their male counterparts.”

Moreover, the study added, “the number of military couples would grow substantially with increased female” enlistment.

“This is because military women are more likely to have a military spouse than military men. The increased number of military couples would make it extremely difficult to maintain the current high rate of military couples assigned together, and a lowering of the ‘togetherness’ rate could seriously affect retention,” it said.

For all the services, the study concludes that there is no reason to fear the ongoing decline in the number of available young men brought about by the aging of the post-World War II “baby boom” generation.

To project an inevitable decline in recruiting success because of a shrinking manpower pool is much too simplistic, the study states, because there are other factors at work. For example, increasing numbers of women are going to work in the civilian world.