Ethnic Cultural Minorities and their Interest in a Job in the Royal Dutch Army

In 2007, the Dutch Department of Defence announced a new ‘Gender and Diversity’ policy. A keystone in the policy is an accent on the recruitment of ethnic cultural minorities (ECM). To recruit ECM personnel it is important to know whether they are interested in a job in the Dutch armed forces. This article describes the results of an exploratory survey (N = 431) of interest or non-interest of young Dutch high school pupils in a job in the Dutch army) and the factors that affect this (non-)interest. Survey participants were drawn from the four big cities in the Netherlands: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.