Study finds Air Force eligibility rules hinder diversity among airmen

The Air Force’s eligibility requirements are keeping more Black and Hispanic Americans from joining the service compared to their white peers, according to a report. 

The issue, laid out in an Aug. 24 study by the Rand Corp. think tank, is one of interest as it prevents the Air Force from resembling the U.S. population it serves, even as it “considers a diverse force to be a military necessity,” researchers write.  

It also hinders the service from being able to pull potential airmen from demographic groups that are more likely to join the military, an issue made more important given the Pentagon’s recent struggles with recruitment and a bid to increase diversity within the ranks.

Such efforts, meant to attract more young people and strengthen the force, are stymied by the Air Force’s rules to join, Rand researchers found. 

“A large segment of the U.S. population is not eligible to enlist as an airman or be commissioned as an officer, and the impact of eligibility criteria is not uniform across gender and race and ethnicity,” the report states.   

“Because most military personnel begin their careers at the entry-level pay grade and positions are filled by promoting from within, achieving diversity at the point of accession is critical to growing and maintaining a diverse workforce across all pay grades.” 

Body mass index, height, education and aptitude requirements are the biggest barriers to both enlisted and officer eligibility, followed by health, citizenship, criminal records, tattoos and other roadblocks. For instance, enlistees must have a high school diploma or GED, no more than two dependents and not be a single parent, and have no felony convictions. But these requirements affect the eligibility of gender, racial and ethnic groups differently, according to the report. 

For example, while Black men make up 7 percent of the enlistment-age population of 17- to 39-year-olds in the United States, only 3.6 percent are eligible to join the Air Force. 

Hispanic men, meanwhile, make up 12 percent of that age range but only 7 percent meet the service’s standards. 

The trends are the same for women, with Hispanic women accounting for more than 10 percent of possible service members in the U.S. population but only 8 percent are eligible.  

And Black women make up 7 percent of Americans within the age range to enlist, though less than 5 percent could join, the report found.   

To try to cast from a wider net, Air Force officials have slightly altered some recruiting rules, allowing some airmen to join with higher body fat percentages and visible tattoos. The service has helped others enlist by aiding them before entrance exams.  

In the officer corps, which requires a college degree to enter — usually through graduating from the Air Force Academy — researchers found similar imbalances that affected Black and Hispanic Americans. 

Officer eligibility is already much more restrictive than that of enlistment, with approximately 1 in 19 men and 1 in 14 women aged 17 to 23 eligible to enter the academy.  

In this category researchers found that Hispanic men and women, Asian women, and white women are less represented in the Air Force accession cohort than in the eligible population. 

Even with the eligibility barriers, Rand researchers found that because Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to join the Air Force, it helps offset some of the minority representation issues. 

Since 2020, the Air Force has made strides to increase the diversity of its airmen, launching several studies, creating working groups and altering rules to negate practices that may unfairly hinder airmen of color.