Serving Her Country: Exploring the Characteristics of Women Veterans

Women have officially been part of the United States Armed Forces since the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901, although they have informally served since the beginning of our nation’s military. Since 1901, women of all ages, ranks, and levels of authority have joined every branch of service, making significant contributions and enduring the same sacrifices as men.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recognizes the importance of caring for our women Veterans and continues to improve health care delivery as well as other VA benefit programs. The VA has expanded access to gender-specific care, enhanced mental health services, and introduced dedicated women’s health clinics. Additionally, VA offices conduct ongoing reviews of policy and strategic plans to better understand and support women Veterans. Such benefits and program enhancements are made possible through the analysis of data on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of women Veterans in the United States along with their utilization of VA benefit programs and services.
The data sources used in this report include VA administration data, Veteran Population Projection Model, and 2022 American Community Survey.

Characteristics of the Growing Population

Since the time of the All-Volunteer Force, the number of women serving in the military has grown. As more women make the transition from service member to Veteran, the proportion of women Veterans also increased over time. 
Between fiscal years (FYs) 2000 and 2023, the total percentage of women Veterans increased from 6.3% to 11.3% or 2.1 million of the total Veteran population in the United States. By 2043, 2.2 million women are projected to make up 17.2% of all living Veterans.
  • The median age of women Veterans was 52 in 2023. Approximately 22.5% were 65 or older, and 2.2% were 85 or older.
  • In 2023, 35.7% of women Veterans resided in five states, Texas, Florida, California, Virginia, and Georgia. By 2043, 36.6% of women Veterans are projected to reside in Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, and North Carolina. (1)

Race and Ethnicity

In 2023, 68.6% (1.4 million) of women Veterans were White, 20.3% (420,000) were Black or African American, and 10.3% (213,000) were Hispanic or Latino of any race. By 2043, these percentages are projected to change slightly to 66.5%, 20.5%, and 12.8%, respectively. Hispanic Veterans show the largest increase among the race and ethnicity groups. Generally, as the percentage of Hispanics in the general population rises, their representation in the military rises as well. (1)

Period of Service

Of the 2.1 million women Veterans living in 2023, 79.6% (1.6 million) served in wartime. Among the 16.2 million men Veterans, 78.0% (12.6 million) served in wartime. By 2043, 68.9% of women Veterans and 69.3% of men Veterans will have served in wartime. (1)

Socioeconomic Characteristics

Educational Attainment

Data from American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) for the most recently published survey year (SY) 2022 show that in general women Veterans had higher education attainment than men Veterans. Approximately 79.5% of women Veterans had at least some college experience, and 41.0% of those had at least a Bachelor’s degree. A relatively small proportion, 3.2% had no high school diploma. For men Veterans, 65.5% of them had at least some college, and 5.0% had less than a high school diploma. (2)

Employment

About 2.5% of women Veterans and 2.3% of men Veterans were unemployed. Among women Veterans of all ages, 52.8% of those not in the labor force were age 65 or older.  As a benchmark for evaluating the employment status of women Veterans, a comparison with men Veterans of comparable age shows some differences.  For the group 25 to 64, women Veterans were less likely to be employed than men Veterans (65.9% and 73.3% respectively) and more likely not to be in the labor force (31.6% and 24.4% respectively). (2)  



Household Income

Compared to their men counterparts, women Veterans were more likely to be at both the lower and higher ends of the household income distribution. About 11.3% of women Veterans had household incomes less than $14,000 compared to 8.6% of men Veterans.  At the uppermost level on the range, 44.2% of women Veterans earned $90,000 or more compared to 42.0% of men Veterans.  For income groups between $14,000 and $60,000, the distribution of women Veterans and men Veterans was similar. (2)

Marital Status

Among Veterans between ages 17 and 34, women Veterans were more likely to be married than men Veterans (47.7% and 44.4%, respectively). For all age groups above 35, we see an opposite trend and the difference between the genders increases with age. The difference is the largest for Veterans above 85 years of age when about 56.2% of men Veterans were married compared to 25.4% of women Veterans. (2)

Use of VA Benefits and Services

The VA is committed to delivering a wide array of benefits and services to eligible Veterans, dependents, survivors, and caregivers to help to ease the transition from the military to civilian life and to improve quality of life after service. The figure below shows the percentage of Veterans that used VA benefits by program and gender in FY 2023. (1),(3)

Disability Compensation

In FY 2023, 671,000 women Veterans or 32.4% of all women Veterans received disability compensation. Among men Veterans, the proportion receiving disability compensation is slightly lower, 30.4%, despite the older average age of male Veterans and their greater exposure to combat.
There are also slight differences in the distribution of compensated Veterans by degree of disability between men and women.  For compensated women Veterans, 14.4% were rated between 0% and 20% disability,  25.2% were rated between 30% and 60% disability, and 60.4% were at 70% or greater disability. For men Veterans receiving compensation, these percentages were 23.3%, 25.4% and 51.2%, respectively.  Compensated women Veterans, were more likely to be rated 100% disability than their men counterparts at 25.4% and 22.6%, respectively. (3)

Pension 

VA pensioners are Veterans who served during wartime and are deemed to be in economic need based on established VA eligibility criteria. In FY 2023, 8,000 women Veterans received pension compared to 144,000 men Veterans, representing less than one percent of both women and men Veterans.
Among all pensioners, 370 women recipients served in World War II, while 5,000 men pensioners served World War II.  The largest group of pensioners served during the Vietnam era. (4)

Veteran Readiness and Employment

Among the 131,000 participants of Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E) programs, there were fewer women Veterans than men, 26.4% and 73.4% respectively, and 0.3% with unknown gender. (3)
Successful women participants increased their monthly salary five times after rehabilitation. The average monthly salary for women Veterans increased from about $865 pre-rehabilitation to $4,800 post-rehabilitation. (5) 

Education 

As of FY 2023, there were 863,000 beneficiaries who received education benefits through the seven different programs. The largest program is the Post 9/11 program (Chapter 33), from which 490,000 Veterans received benefits in 2023. About 100,000 or 20.3% were women and 392,000 or 79.7% were men. (4) 

Loan Guaranty

During FY 2023, more than 400,000 loans were guaranteed: 338,000 for men Veterans and 63,000 for women Veterans. The average loan amount and the average guaranty on those loans was slightly lower for women Veterans than for their men counterparts. The average loan for women Veterans was $358,765 compared to $361,252 for men. The average guaranty on home loans for women Veterans was $89,282 compared to $89,625 for men. (3)

Health Care 

A major component of the array of benefits provided to Veterans by VA is health care. In 2023, about 930,000 women Veterans were enrolled in VA health care compared to over 8.0 million men. The number of women enrolled represents 45.0% of all women Veterans in FY 2023, while the percentage is 50.5% among men Veterans. Not all Veterans who enroll in the health care system become health care users. Approximately 650,000 women Veterans sought VA medical care in 2023, which is 70.0% of women enrollees. (6)

Invitation to Apply for Benefits

VA encourages all Veterans to learn about VA programs and to apply for the benefits and services they have earned. Programs are administered through three VA administrations. Follow these links for detailed information, eligibility criteria and application instructions.

MyVA411

With one phone call, Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors can easily access information on VA benefits and services or be connected to an expert for answers to questions.
1-800-MyVA411 (800-698-2411)

PACT Act

The PACT Act is a new law that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances.

Contact Information

Prepared by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Enterprise Integration, Office of Data Governance and Analytics, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics. For questions, please email us at VANCVAS@va.gov.
Sources
  1. Veteran Population - National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics (va.gov) National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.  [Accessed July 19, 2024]
  2. American Community Survey: SY 2022
  4. National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, Internal Analysis
  5. Veterans Benefits Administration, Veteran Readiness & Employment Service, Strategic Analysis
  6. VHA Support Service Center (VSSC) VHA Pocket Card. [Accessed July 19, 2024]