Nelson Lim

Working Around the Military: Challenges to Military Spouse Employment and Education.

Abstract : Successful recruiting and retention of the active duty force relies in large part on the extent to which service members and their spouses experience both job satisfaction and contentment with life in the military. In his February 12, 2001, speech at Fort Stewart, Georgia, President Bush acknowledged the importance of caring not just for service members but their entire families, pledging, We owe you and your families a decent quality of life. . . . Service members deserve a military that treats them and their families with respect. A major challenge to ensuring familywide quality of life is overcoming the hurdles to military spouse employment. Data indicate that the majority of military spouses are in the workforce; however, research indicates that they have difficulty finding jobs and that limited career opportunities for military spouses may be a factor in military personnel leaving the service. Given its impact on service member contentment and retention, spouse employment and education is thus an area of significant concern to the military. This study seeks to (1) provide a richer and more detailed depiction of military spouse employment and earnings, (2) explore the degree to which employment is problematic for military spouses, and (3) identify policies to reconcile spouse employment issues with the militarys need to retain qualified personnel.

Managing Diversity in Corporate America: An Exploratory Analysis

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Working Around the Military: Challenges of Military Spouse Employment

Abstract : Successful recruiting and retention of the active duty force depends in large part on the extent to which service members and their spouses are satisfied with the military lifestyle. Prior research suggests both that the most satisfied military families are those with an employed spouse and that the influence of military spouses on service member retention decisions has increased with the proportion of military spouses working outside the home. The majority of military spouses are employed. Nonetheless, the RAND Corporation finds that they are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be seeking work, and earn less than comparable civilian spouses.

Improving Development Teams to Support Deliberate Development of Air Force Officers

Abstract : Each year, the Air Force commissions approximately 4,000 new officers, primarily through the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA or AFA), Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at colleges and universities across the United States, and Officer Training School. These entering officers mature into midlevel and senior leaders by gaining experience throughout their careers by being assigned to positions of increasing responsibility and by participating in a number of educational opportunities, including Squadron Officer School and intermediate (IDE) and senior(SDE) developmental education (DE). The military services are unique in that all service members enter at the bottom and advance upward into positions with increasing levels of responsibility and more-strategic leadership burdens. The result is that the organization itself must develop whatever knowledge, skill, or ability an officer will need at higher levels.2The management of officer careers has been and continues to be an exercise in achieving a balance among the desires of each individual officer (e.g., assignment to a specific Air Force base or kind of position), the needs of the career field (e.g., assignments that provide officers with specific key occupation-specific experience), and the needs of the Air Force (e.g., to fill positions in less-desirable locations). Attendance at and choice of professional military education(PME) is also balanced against the needs and desires of individual officers, the career field, and the Air Force.