DOD's 2023 Demographics Report Indicates More Women, Fewer Separations

The Department of Defense today released its newest demographics report, the "2023 Demographics Profile of the Military Community," which provides a wide range of information about the active duty, National Guard and Reserve enlisted and officer service members and families who make up the United States military.

Key takeaways from the latest report include that the active-duty and selected reserve population in 2023 was 37,025 lower than in 2022, that over the same time period, the percentage of personnel separating from the active duty military decreased by 7.4% and 41.2% for the selected reserve, and that among the active duty force, the percentage of women serving in uniform has increased slightly from 17.5% in 2022 to 17.7% in 2023. The report also indicates that education levels of active-duty enlisted service members has increased compared to 2010.

Similar profiles of the U.S. military have been released for decades, said Dr. Towanda Street, the program analyst for research within Military Community and Family Policy who served as the action officer for this year's report.

"Military Community and Family Policy maintains hardcopy reports dating back to 1999," she said. "And in 2019, the first report was made available online in an interactive, user-friendly interface."

This year's report and reports from 2017 can be found at the MilitaryOneSource website.

The demographics report is produced with data provided through the Defense Manpower Data Center, and in its final version, the report is used across the department by the professionals who develop the policies and programs that affect military service members and their families, Street said.

"The ... report is the only comprehensive, publicly released snapshot of the armed forces' demographics produced by the Department of Defense," Street said. "The report is released annually to ensure policymakers, research organizations and a host of other organizations that contribute to the military community have the quality data needed to understand and respond to the ever-changing needs of our service members and their families."

The 2023 report includes information related to gender, race and ethnicity, age, paygrade and education for active duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel in all of the military services. It also includes information about the number of service members who are married and how many service members have children.

The report also includes older information related to end strength, gender, pay grades and numbers of personnel who separate, for instance, to indicate trends in the U.S. military.

For example, in 2005, there were 5.1 enlisted service members for each officer. In 2023, that ratio changed to 4.4 enlisted for each officer, which demonstrates a decrease in enlisted troops and an increase in officers over that time frame. Also in 2005, the ratio of female to male service members was 1 to 5.8. In 2023, that ratio decreased to 1 to 4.6, indicating an increase in female service members.