An Analysis of Promotion and Retention Factors Among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Marine Corps Officers

Hispanics are the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S. This thesis reviews Marine Corps policies on the recruitment, retention, and promotion of talented officers of a diverse background, and applies quantitative multivariate analysis methods to identify pre-commissioning and post-commissioning factors, such as college performance, accession source, military training and fitness report scores that explain any differences in job performance measures of Marine Corpsofficers of different ethnic backgrounds. Using data on 7,780 Marine Corpsofficers commissioned from 1999 to 2004, the findings from multivariate regression analysis show that Hispanic Marine Corpsofficers have a greater likelihood of retention but no difference in fitness report performance and no difference in the probability of promotion to O4 in comparison to non-Hispanic officers.