Identifying Enlisted Stay and Leave Population Characteristics with Discriminant Analysis

There exist factors that play a major role in an enlisted Airman's decision to either stay on active duty in the Air Force or separate. The current force structure of the U.S. Air Force and increased loss of enlisted personnel is a major concern as we look at maintaining manpower to meet the needs of the Air Force. The Air Force is reacting to this low retention problem by increasing the bonuses for initial enlistments and reenlistments, home basing, increasing quality of life for Air Force personnel with enlisted dormitory plus-ups, and under AEF personnel have increased predictability of deployment. This thesis provides a method for identifying the variables that most characterize Stay and Leave populations for enlisted Airmen on active duty in the Air Force. Discriminant Analysis is used to identify population characteristics that categorize the two groups. A methodology is constructed that can discriminate between Airmen that stay on active duty military service and Airmen that leave active duty military service.