The United States Department of State has the vital role of establishing foreign policies and maintaining international relationships. It is composed of many sub-departments and bureaus, each tasked with a different global and domestic responsibility. The department is vital to maintaining peace in the states and abroad. In this article, we will be exploring the demographics of the United States Department of State. There were two members who are of Arab or Iranian descent. According to the United States Census Bureau, those of Arab or Iranian descent are classified as White and it reflects in the graphs here.
The vast majority of the department, a whopping 79% of state leadership is White. Out of 236 members only 22 are Asian, 19 are Black or African American, 11 are Hispanic and 3 are Mixed.
Even when all racial groups besides White are combined, they only make up a mere 23% of the department. That means out of every ten members eight would be white and only two would be a person of color.
Less than half of the U.S Department of State leaders are female. A majority are male making up 61% of members.
When gender composition is shown by race we see variations in representation for each group. For White leaders 63% were male and 37% were female. This is close to the percent gender difference for the entire department when grouped only by gender. Asians were represented by gender equally with eleven females and eleven males. Of those who were Black or African American, there were slightly fewer females than males. For Hispanics, there were less than half the amount of females to males. For those who were Mixed, there were only three females.
There is an international and domestic importance for the United States Department of State and it is necessary for the workers to possess a wide variety of skills in order to effectively communicate and work with people around the world. It is important that the leadership come from diverse backgrounds. The question is whether or not this need is being met.
United States Department of State. 2021. “About the U.S. Department of State”. (https://www.state.gov/about/)