Post-9/11 Women Veterans

Kelly A. Holder, U.S. Census Bureau

The role of women in the U.S. military has changed since the inception of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) in 1973. Significant changes in legislation and policy in the early 1990s opened up occupational opportunities for active-duty women. Today, over 80 percent of the services’ career positions are open to women. These changes allow them to fly combat aircraft, serve on combat ships, and serve in combat-related occupations. Additionally, the nature of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has redefined the experiences of women serving in the military. An unprecedented number of women—over 155,000—have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. This analysis uses data from the 2008 American Community Survey and the 1990 decennial census to examine how Post-9/11 women veterans compare to women veterans who served in the early part of the AVF period, as well as how they compare to their similarly-aged civilian counterparts.