What is your gender?
It's a standard demographic question that many of us answered on the Online Marketing Industry Survey. It's a compelling indicator of how our industry is evolving in an area that truly helps us become better marketers: gender equality. Why does gender equality matter to marketing, and why do we need to understand this trend? There are hundred of reasons why gender diversity is good, and we can name at least a few. Diversity in the workplace fosters better working performance by forcing us to think more deeply about decisions and with new perspectives. Studies have also shown that creating a more gender-diverse organization will boost a company's profits. As we discuss the following data, I encourage you to consider how you and your organization can foster more gender diversity in your workplace.
When collecting the data, our goal was to reach the general online marketing population through a diverse range of channels. However, our results skew towards the Moz Community, as most participants discovered the survey through Moz's blog and Twitter feed.
Of the 3,618 respondents, 1,089 respondents marked "female," 2,516 marked "male," and 13 marked "I'd rather not say." Compared to December 2013, females have only gained about 2% representation in the Online Marketing Industry Survey, with a 7.3% increase in women since 2012. Every year, more women are joining the online marketing workforce. However, there's still a long way to go before women represent anywhere close to 50% of that population.
Here are the percentages of each gender in overall participation for the last 4 years:
Of the 1,089 women who took the survey, 63.32% are from the United States. Overall, there are more U.S. women represented, but when we filter down to individual countries, we see a more erratic breakdown of men versus women:
Many countries are missing from the diagram, as we only included countries that were represented by greater than 100 participants in the study. According to the survey, the smallest gender difference goes to Canada. (Go Canada!) The highest gender difference is India.
Breaking down job titles
Like many fields, online marketers have job title inequalities in the most poignant ways. Job titles are a good indicator of which levels and functions are geared towards men or women throughout different types of organizations.
Based on these responses, the most equal fields are web analytics and public relations. Women were more likely to have words like "social media" and "content" in their job titles, while men dominate the fields of engineering, web development, paid advertising, SEO, and e-commerce (all fields that are considered more technical).
The next chart looks at job level, where we see that males dominate higher-level jobs. The largest gaps between men and women are in the titles of president, business owner, chief, consultant, director, analyst, vice president, and strategist. The lowest disparities in job level: intern, project manager, and specialist. Women are more likely to have "editor," "assistant," "writer," and "coordinator" within their titles.
How do these inequalities compare to other industries? According to HBR, on average, women make up 40% of managers, 35% of directors, 27% of vice presidents, 24% of senior vice presidents, and 19% of executive and chiefs. If we compare that data to our own, it would appear the online marketers are making strides in higher-level jobs—we're above average for vice presidents and chiefs—but falling short for managers, directors, and presidents.
Why are those titles stacked the way they are? I don't have a specific answer, but I do know what it's not based on, according to a few other questions in the survey:
- Education? Nope. 80.80% of female respondents have 4-year and/or Master's-level degrees, while only 64.50% of men reported having 4-year or Master's-level degrees. Women who took this survey have a higher level of education than their male counterparts.
- Years of experience? Maybe. There are higher percentages of males with more than 3 years' experience in online marketing. Yet that's only correlation; it could be that women aren't sticking to online marketing as long as men.
The money question: How do salaries stack up?
Based on the survey responses, there is a suggested pattern that men make more than women, and are paid differently depending on their job level.
A few notes about our methodology: We're reporting salary in U.S. dollars, because we asked survey participants to report their salaries in that form. In order to analyze the salaries, which were collected by ranges, we took the midpoint of the range. This isn't the best model, but allows us to test the significance of the differences between genders and job titles. For you data junkies out there, we used the 2-sample Z-test. If the group had less than 30 respondents, then that group was excluded from testing. Thanks to our resident statistician, Mitch, for helping with the analysis.
We show that men earn more than women in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Australian responses showed a slight difference between salaries, but it wasn't significant enough to say with confidence that salaries were unequal.
*No inequality proven: P-Values are too great to suggest inequality between men and women in Australia. However, the averages show, directionally, that men may make more than women.
Personally, I was shocked at the disparity in salary. However, as we saw in the previous section, males are more likely to have higher-power jobs; could this be a reflection of that? Let's look at the average salaries of men and women by job title in all responses (globally):
*No inequality proven: P-Values are too great to lend statistical significance to inequality between men and women. However, the averages show, directionally, where salaries swing.
Comparing salaries for job titles, we can see that the differences in salary permeate through nearly all levels and functions. We show that men make more than women both as business owners and consultants. While we can't prove disparity in all job functions, it's worth noting that women may make more than men in some functions. Interestingly, when we filtered our results for only U.S. responses, the most unequal job levels are business owner, manager, and strategist.
Improving gender diversity
We know, based on the data presented, that there is a gender gap in online marketing. The question that remains is: What is your company or organization doing to support a gender-diverse workplace? As I circulated this data around the office, it spurred a really cool discussion: What is being done within online marketing organizations to tackle gender inequalities? I thought I'd share some examples here:
- Tech companies are discussing salaries more openly, like SumAll and Buffer. This will shed light on any disparities occurring within these tech organizations and support equal pay.
- Companies partner with nonprofits, such as Ada Developers Academy, that aim at getting women into the technical space.
- Seer Interactive made a point to focus on helping women find mentorship from other women leaders.
- Marketing conferences are making strides to include more female speakers and track attendee participation. (SMX just blogged about this recently, and MozCon had 12 women representing out of 26 total speakers in 2015.)
If you're feeling stuck or wondering how you can help, here are some great resources and tools for implementing and enacting change in your organization:
- Ways to Proactively Welcome Women into Online Marketing, by Erica McGillivray. A recently published blog post, giving some great tips and tricks on how to engage women in online marketing.
- 6 Ways to Fix Inequality at Work, by the World Economic Forum. The WEF also has some great research and resources for improving education, accessibility, and more across the world.
I want to live in a world where anyone can succeed regardless of what they look like. Similarly, I don't want to live in a world where people are penalized disproportionally based on what they look like. I'm hopeful that someday everyone will have equal opportunity to contribute and succeed.
We have a long way to go before we get there. This is true for online marketing, and many other areas of life. But I'm not threatened by big, complex problems. I am invigorated by them. We have inherited the culture we live in, but we can also influence it for the better.
I loved this post because it uses data to help us understand gender inequality in online marketing. It's heartening to see that in some areas we're doing pretty well (Yes, go Canada!). And I'm inspired to keep working hard in areas where there is still too great of a gap (technical and leadership roles).
I heard Rev. Jesse Jackson say "We didn't know how good baseball could be until everyone could play." Amen. That's true for online marketing, and any role that is predominately dominated by a homogeneous group. We will not have social equity until we have opportunity equity.
Thanks for the thoughtful post Jackie!
Jackie - many thanks for putting together this data and for analyzing the numbers with such an eye to statistical rigor and significance (+1 for the thanks to Mitch as well for his contribution.
To my mind, we're making some progress but, much like the rest of the tech world, not enough and not quickly. However, I am glad to see that, as the conversations have become broader, more serious, and more visible in the past few years, at least the trend of things getting worse seems to reversing.
p.s. For anyone interested on my more personal thoughts on this topic, I wrote about that here: https://moz.com/rand/why-i-believe-in-intentional-...
p.p.s. I don't want to engage with the more broad political/social issues outside of online marketing here (both b/c I think that stuff is off-topic, which is against Moz's community guidelines and b/c I find it to be mostly a disguised form of trolling), but I will point out that many of the arguments against intentional diversity efforts stem from a just-world fallacy/bias, which, for those unfamiliar, deserves some research.
Anyone who discriminates against hiring women for marketing or sales jobs is a moron. Just look at these reasons (off the top of my head -- the specific data is out there and easy to find):
-- Women make the vast majority of consumer purchases
-- Women highly influence the buying decisions in male-female couples even when the men end up making the actual purchase
-- Women now earn the majority of college degrees
-- In large cities, younger women have higher salaries than younger men
In other words, women are almost surely buying your product -- and they might be the ones buying your product most of the time. And who understands female consumers the best? Female marketers and salespeople. It's not only about fairness and combating sexism -- it just makes basic business sense as well.
The first rule of marketing and sales -- heck, even on a Product level -- is to know your audience.
Thanks for sharing this data Jackie. I often avoid the discussion about gender discrimination because it makes me uncomfortable - I don't like being asked to support or favour someone because she is a woman (which is often the tone of women-in-business organisations). To me, it makes the problem worse - by favouring women for being women, we are sending the message that a different standard applies for us because as a gender we need a handicap.
I would love to get to a point however, where sexist comments (by both men and women) are consistently and publicly challenged by both the men and the women in the room. So, when someone says (all comments from real life): "he's a man, he'll negotiate a better salary," or "Many women simply don't like the one-sided type of thinking that it takes to be an engineer" or "careful about hiring women in their early thirties as they'll be off on maternity leave soon." these statements are challenged - not in an aggressive, bra-burning way, but in a more understanding and forgiving way - think "What you said is a little discriminatory. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but I'm challenging it because I believe that this is how we change culture."
I think that's how change starts.
Wonderful insights, Jackie! I'm here to validate your data about India. As shown in your data, here in India, we have a long way to go when it comes to equal opportunities for both men and women, whether it's digital marketing or any other fields. For most part of India, a career in online marketing is still perceived as a potentially risky career option. For a society driven by patriarchy, most families would rather advise their female members to pursue a career path that has been tested for safe pursuit. This is the reason why quite a few women here would prefer pursing a career in freelance content writing so they could balance work and family unlike their male counterpart. Hopefully, the scenario will change for the better.
Jackie,
Thanks for tackling this topic. It's certainly one that brings out opinions from all sides. Gender diversity is a hot button topic, and for good reason: The $.78/$1 earning figures go back as far as I can remember, and this does not take into account all groups' incomes. Some groups fair far worse.
Online marketing is no different, as your figures surrounding job parity suggest. More needs to be done, for sure.
But I wonder if we aren't going at this wrong - by focusing too much on the goal (income parity) and not enough on the strategy to get us there.
For example, when we use words like "discrimination" and "inequality," it tends to add tension to an already tense topic. Folks on all sides come out swinging, negating the opportunity for real, open, honest discussion.
What's needed, at this juncture, is a willingness to talk openly and to be open-minded about possible solutions to the divide, one that breeds more and more resentment each year it seems.
I'd love to know what others think.
RS
Hi Ronell!
I tend to agree-- we can talk about the data and issues all day long, but at some point, we need to start taking action. I'm going to second your comment, Ronell :)
1. What are others in the community are doing to make change?
2. If you could dream-up a new policy or practice to promote gender equality... what would it be?
-Jackie
I'm a big fan of encouraging more women to start businesses through better access to funding; better creation of, promotion/awareness building for, and thus better access to communities of women entrepreneurs; focus on supporting women in the development of financial analytics skills through our educational systems (from elementary school through university); and on continuing to encourage women to work through socialization standards that tend to discourage risk-taking (opportunity chasing) in girls. For a start.
I'm all for equality.
I fully support equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, these days, whenever anybody starts talking about policy change to ensure "equality", usually, they're aiming for equality of the outcome, not the equality of opportunity.
I fully support the removal of any discrimination in the hiring process, but I would never ever support the discrimination against somebody to ensure some arbitrary gender/race/age distribution.
Wouldn't you agree that it is rather odd that these days the discussion is highly focused on getting more women into STEM? Isn't it odd that the discussion usually focuses on those 'Sciences' where men are dominant but somehow tend to ignore the sciences where women are dominant? Like biology, veterinary medicine, agriculture etc... for example? Aren't those sciences too? why is there no drive to increase men's participation in biology where 84% are women?
As others have argued around here, why is it important to 'fix' any field where men are over-represented and nobody ever wants to do anything where women are over-represented?
What troubles me is that policy changes usually mean the start of implicit discrimination against the over-represented group to ensure that it stops being over-represented. In colleges 'equality' meant cancellation of countless men sports teams despite the very common knowledge that men tend to participate in sports in greater numbers.
Elle,
Either we're giving Jackie too much credit or two much blame for this post. From where I sit, she's outlined a problem without assigning blame to anyone, while opening up the door for the industry to discuss and work to discover a solution.
She has neither said nor implied that women should get something they don't deserve.
It's interesting, honestly, that when the very topic of gender diversity is raised, many folks become incensed, seeing the issue (wrongly) as being about GIVING women an undeserved leg up.
The real issue, and the only one raised by Jackie, is the numbers stink. Let's do something about it. And for the record, the same logic would apply if the situation were reversed and it was men who were underrepresented in online marketing.
However, in that case, I somehow doubt we'd be seeing such resistance.
RS
she's outlined a problem without assigning blame to anyone
That's the thing: Is it really a problem in search of a solution? If it were a problem here then it should be considered a 'problem' every time there is a group that's over-represented in some field, be it men or women, then somebody should 'fix' the wrong situation.
The real issue, and the only one raised by Jackie, is the numbers stink. Let's do something about it. And for the record, the same logic would apply if the situation were reversed and it was men who were underrepresented in online marketing.
Why do the numbers stink? Because men are over-represented? As I said in my previous post, women are over-represented in countless fields yet we don't hear a peep about it (and when you do hear about it like in my post, somebody argues against it, like you're doing).
Theoretically, the same logic should apply if women are over-represented, but if somebody were to raise the issue what would be the response? He/she would never be taken seriously and serious attempts are taken at shutting him/her down. How many articles have you read in your life that discuss the "problem" of too many women in education? How many articles have you read that look into the problem of men falling behind in college education considering that currently roughly 60% or college students are female? I bet you never even checked one such article. I read an articles that were arguing that some universities are discriminating against women when they were admitting too many men despite the over-representation of women in colleges!
Very interesting post Jackelyn. Wonder how these numbers and gender inequality affect job applications, interviews, etc.
I was wondering the same thing! I'm hoping to hear stories from women who've applied to online marketing jobs and from hiring managers and recruiters in the field about how gender has played into the decisions they make.
I was thinking the same thing! A few of us recently watched this video at work about Unconsious Bias. It was really eye opening to see how many factors sway our judgements about job applicants. Have you seen it?
No, I will watch it today. I work in digital marketing (graduate level) and intrigued to see how my career pans out!
Can I ask, what's the problem with an unequal distribution? Just because the distribution is unequal it doesn't mean we lack equality of opportunity (yet this seems to be the prevailing logic within this post).
Take the UK as an example. 80% of primary school teachers are female and applying the logic in this post, that must mean there's discrimination against men? What's more, again in the UK, 60% of all University applicants are female, as are the majority of medical students and those in the HR sector, the charity sector, the psychology industry, nursing, professional service departments at Universities and on and on.
Further, there seems to be a remarkable lack of attention on unequal distributions in working class industries. Can I ask why this is? While women may lack representation in certain well paid industries, they also lack representation in very low-paid industries.
Truck Drivers - 99% men.
Refuse collectors - 99.8% men.
Power line installers - 99% men.
Sewage workers - 99% men.
Plumbers - 95% men.
Plasterers - 95% men.
Builders - 96% men.
Oil rigs - 96.7% men.
Road workers - 99% men.
Further, young professional women are now paid £600 per year on average more than males. The ONS (who pull data on the official pay gap) also highlight that 'it should not be used to determine whether women receive equal pay for equal work.' It takes a 1% sample of the population, doesn't compare like with like (we could be comparing chip shop workers to CEOs for all we know), and doesn't adjust the data for variables including but not limited to men being more likely to relocate, take on hazardous professions (and qualify for hazard pay), or men working more overtime (which they do, according to the ONS).
In gist, anyone can pick out an unequal distribution and make a story out of it. Watch:
Men are 3.5x more likely to kill themselves.
Men are 66% of all homicide victims.
Men are twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime (national crime statistics).
Men are 6x more likely to be homeless.
Men are the majority of rape victims in the US when you incorporate prison statistics (according to the Dept. of Justice).
Men are 40% of all domestic violence victims (according to the Home Office) yet only have 60 refuges relative to 7,000 for women.
Men are 90% of all workplace deaths.
Etc. etc. etc.
EDITED TO ADD: I think it's also pertinent to address why these issues are cherry-picked in the first place. It has been demonstrated time and time and time again, women are far more likely to show an own-group bias than males are. 4x more likely, in fact. Further, males are more likely to show a bias towards females than they are other males.
I think that's something that we, as a society, need to take into account and address. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274
"Four experiments confirmed that women’s automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men’s and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists."
https://rutgerssocialcognitionlab.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/9/7/13979590/rudmangoodwin2004jpsp.pdf (this URL is NOT the source of the study, it's merely the address).
Hello Gareth,
Thanks for your response! While there are industries where men represent a large percentage, these are all symptoms of larger systemic issues with sexism in the workplace. I'd recommend looking into these articles to learn more! https://moz.com/blog/ways-to-proactively-welcome-women-into-online-marketing#resources
In regards to some of the statistics you shared towards the end of your response. I just want to reiterate that we're talking about Online Marketing and wage gaps, and I'm not sure any of us can talk about these larger social issues. Let's keep the conversation focused and not derail to other topics.
Hi Jackelyn,
Thanks for your reply.
"I just want to reiterate that we're talking about Online Marketing and wage gaps, and I'm not sure any of us can talk about these larger social issues."
What larger social issues?
I don't see how we can contexualise the morality to fit just the niche that is internet marketing without discussing the logic which underpins your entire post: unequal distribution = discrimination. It's a bit like debating the topic 'is murder wrong?' and then contextualising and stipulating we can only discuss within the context of 'is murder wrong when it happens to women in New York?'
I don't reject your argument about unequal distributions - there are many of them which favour both men and women, it's what makes society great - but I do reject your somewhat simplistic calculation of unequal distribution = discrimination. I don't believe that everyone accepts that calculation because if they do, then there are many industries in which men are 'discriminated' against.
The only data that we gathered at Moz, is on online marketing. I don’t have background or data on crime, homelessness, etc. (I over-generalized all of these as “social issues”). I am attempting to bring light to how gender in online marketing is distributed, and how companies can or are making systematic changes to improve it. I don’t quite mention discrimination, but I can see how you’re drawing from the post. Discrimination doesn’t just apply to present-tense, it’s something that requires a historical context and understanding. In regards to sexism, there is a lot of past discrimination led to the situation that we find ourselves in today.
I believe, as do most who work with gender issues, that the only way to improve gender equality is to acknowledge discrimination (whether it’s conscious or not), and make a concerted effort to make a change.
The crime, homelessness statistics are redundant in the context of this conversation, I only highlighted them to demonstrate it's very easy to pick out an unequal distribution and paint one side of society as disadvantaged. We happen to live in a time where unequal distributions and issues are emphasised on behalf of women, yet invariably the same standard isn't extended to all groups in society.
The morality, to me, appears to be relative: 'an unequal distribution is discrimination, wrong or sexist when it favours men (only in high wage industries though, not working class industries like I've outlined above) but acceptable or 'empowering' when the unequal distribution favours women.' I don't subscribe to that morality - if it's 'wrong' or 'discrimination' then it has to be wrong or 'discrimination' in all contexts, not just contexts which we like to cherry-pick.
Then again, I don't believe an unequal distribution is 'wrong', or 'discrimination' (which I'm afraid is the debate which has to come to the fore any time anyone makes an implication that it is). There are millions of unequal distributions across many different industries and workplaces and even the provision of toilet cubicles, total number of pictures of men and women in newspapers, etc.
What I'm saying is that the mere presence of an unequal distribution in favour of men or women isn't even close to being enough to qualify 'discrimination', 'sexism', or any other standard. If it is, then we really need to do something about the number of women applying to Universities, or the number of female primary school teachers.
If we have to confine this debate to internet marketing, then my workplace is about 60-70% women. Is that discrimination? Of course not.
"Discrimination doesn’t just apply to present-tense, it’s something that requires a historical context and understanding."
~~
I typically try to stay out of these "types" of discussions... mainly because I think they lack merit & are based on fallacies that would never stand up in a college Logic 101 course. Yes... there is a historical context to discrimination.
However, I will disagree with you on this aspect. Your argument is the same argument race baiters use to argue that the United States is a racist country, that the Republican party is a racist party & that all cops kill innocent black people. The true history of that is largely ignored by those who seek to profit off of the alter of diversity. If we're going to get down to brass tax on the racism argument (side tangent, be patient) -- Democrats founded the KKK, established segregation, opposed the Civil Rights Amendment & as far as I'm concerned still keep minorities enslaved. Cops kill more unarmed white people on a yearly basis than unarmed or armed black people. More non-police black people kill black people than white cops kill black people every year in the United States. However, by popular misinformation, that isn't true, and the Democrats are said to be the party that supports & defends minorities.
Discrimination does just apply to present-tense, and historical context has very little to do with reality involving discrimination.
Discrimination is illegal in the United States & has been for several decades, ESPECIALLY if you're a protected class, ie: minority. The majority CAN be legally discriminated against and gets no protection from minority or fringe group discrimination or bullying.
I'm not responsible for the actions of people who lived 200 years ago & neither are you. Even implying such is an insult to the intelligence of everyone who reads this post.
~~
To the point of your post... I work with more women than men. I work FOR a woman CEO. The direct boss I report to is a woman. But we don't have those kinds of "issues" in the south, Dallas in particular. We don't care what color you are, sex you are, gender you identify with... we care about what you bring to the table work wise. If you're qualified & can kick ass at the job, you get it. If you aren't, being a woman shouldn't get you the job. You aren't qualified. If you aren't, being a man shouldn't get you the job. You aren't qualified. If you aren't, being a minority shouldn't get you the job. You're not qualified.
That's racial equality. That's gender equality. It's called EQUALITY. There are no degrees of equality. There are no levels of true justice. Go look at the statue of justice, blindfolded with a scale in one hand and a sword in the other. True equality, True justice doesn't care who you are, where you came from or what you look like. All it cares about is equality and justice under the law.
So... as I've said before on Moz and as I'm sure I'll say again -- Diversity for the SAKE of diversity is stupid. Hire people who can do the job. Even better if they have a diverse background, experience in other fields, etc. If you have a diverse background but don't know a damn thing about SEO, you aren't getting a SEO job -- diverse candidate or not. You literally CAN'T do the job. If you have a non-diverse background and do know SEO... I'm not going to pass over you to find someone to meet the Politically Correct Police's diversity quota. I want someone who can kick ass at their job. I don't make money for diversity. I do make money kicking ass online. +1 Gareth Mailer
Thank you for your comment, Scott. I won’t address much of what you’ve brought up, including “race baiting” and the history of the Democratic Party. To do so would be to derail the topic at hand and risk allowing this discussion to devolve into a typical “left” versus “right” argument. I hope you understand.
What I will say is that this notion of a pure, color-blind, gender-blind meritocracy is, while lovely, profoundly unrealistic. It’s very easy to dismiss calls for inclusivity with claims that the “best person” for a job will get that job, but until we truly achieve gender parity that’s impossible. Our industry, among others, is known to discourage participation by women. Stories like this one are all too common. If half the population feels discouraged from even entering the industry, then how will we ever know that the “best person” has actually gotten the job? Couldn’t the best person have been lost to the “leaky pipeline” (see Erica’s comment in response to Lou_S), or have never entered the industry in the first place?
It’s no secret that Moz encourages gender diversity in our hiring and at our events. I certainly hope that this won’t stay necessary forever. If we all take this issue seriously and do what we can to make our industry as inclusive as possible, then eventually every person will be as likely as anyone else to contribute work or apply for jobs. That will be the time for gender-blindness. But not until then.
Amen Scott. You bring a much-needed rational voice to this conversation.
This discussion here is about the gender disparity in online marketing and what it means for the online marketing industry. What's the problem with unequal distribution? The problem is we're missing out on people who would be great contributors to this industry. Unless there's the belief that men are simply better at online marketing than women (which I will go ahead and outright reject), the disparity in representation is a problem. If women are underrepresented in online marketing, we don't have the best possible people working at our companies and growing our industry.
"If women are underrepresented in online marketing, we don't have the best possible people working at our companies and growing our industry."
Right but again, does that logic extend to every industry where the unequal distribution favours women? Does believing in the distribution of male and female primary school teachers automatically equate, as you seemingly suggest it does, to believing 'women are simply better than men at teaching'? I don't believe it does, nor do I believe that we need to reach some arbitrary level of 'gender parity' to make society function.
Do we need to pull perfectly good female teachers from their roles simply to get to a situation whereby we've got a 50:50 ratio of men and women in the primary school teaching profession? Why are we doing this? So everyone feels comfortable? There is no basis in believing that unequal distribution equates to discrimination. If there was, there would be a massive push to get more women into the sanitation, sewage, power line installation and building industries. Yet, there isn't.
If we extend your logic, what happens when we reach gender parity? Let's say we manufacture an outcome which makes us all feel a little bit better about ourselves and a little bit more 'moral.' Let's say men and women are equally represented in the internet marketing profession. What happens when the ratio is, say, 51% women and 49% men? Is it time to flip out? How do we maintain gender parity across every single workplace in every single industry? Who's going to administrate that? Why would we even want to?
There's no evidence here, all we've got is an unequal distribution, one of millions in society.
Gareth,
You're correct to suggest that disparity is ever-present. It's impossible to get around. Heck, even if you wanted perfect parity, it would be largely infeasible:
We get caught up by words and what they mean in our minds, but when it comes to gender disparity, it's not about placing blame. It's about saying, first and foremost, this (a) is worthy of exploration, (b) we think it needs to be addressed and (c) we're committed to finding a solution.
What I love about brands like Moz and people like Rand and Sarah (and numerous others) is they aren't simply standing up and saying, "This is a problem. What's the industry going to do about it?"
Rather, they are opening the DISCUSSION up to the entire community while pointing a finger at themselves and their brand, saying, "Hey, these NUMBERS are unacceptable. Let's work to fix them."
It's easy to point fingers. The only way brands can be successful in addressing gender disparity is through a willingness to shine the light in all of the corners, without fear of what they find, realizing that the end result is worth the risk, the trouble and the potential acrimony from naysayers.
RS
Hi Ronell,
Your point is fair and valid. However, I would add the following:
1. The narrative is skewed in favour of certain groups in society. The implication of this post is that an unequal distribution exists, and that's a problem. Yet, this narrative only extends to certain groups in society, the narrative never extends to industries or workplaces where males, or other groups for that matter, are in the minority.
If this particular distribution was in favour of women, do you think we would even be having this conversation?
2. The narrative is accentuated in one direction for a reason: own-group bias.
As per my post above:
"Four experiments confirmed that women’s automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men’s and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in-group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists."
3. If we're going to have these conversations, and we're going to be concerned about every single one of the millions of unequal distributions in society, and we're going to question how to fix them, then such a standard needs to be extended to all groups in society. While there's action to iron out unequal distributions in favour of men, there's no corresponding action to iron out unequal distributions which favour women.
That, to me, isn't equality. It's relativism. It's a failure to apply a morality consistently. In one instance (a unequal distribution which favours women) it's a non-event, in another instance it's a prejudice, discrimination or 'a problem.'
According to any definition of equality, that's not right. This explains my lack of 'empathy', or even consideration around this issue. Why should I protect other people's group rights when those same people aren't interested in having a conversation when the same 'discrimination' is inflicted on my group (as you've seen above, there was an attempt to shut the debate down)?
Accentuating one side of the narrative isn't 'progressive', it's divisive. Too often with these types of conversations only one side of the narrative is accentuated. This breeds suspicion, frustration and division.
I agree with this post, totally. The main problem is that eventhough people are defending equality on jobs, they still pay different salaries to them employee, but now the real question is: is that a decisition of the companies or is it something determined by the Government? I think it might be different for every country, right? Anyways, whatever the main cause is, it should be changed right ASAP, everyone should get the same salary if they're doing the same effort and using the same hours... And BTW, it's great that you've used data to compare the differences, that makes it so much clear and understandable. Hope to read a lot of more posts like this one!
Great read - it's interesting to see the gulf from VP to SVP to C level for gender bias...
Would we be able to look at the size of organisation in relation to this? That'd be quite interesting to me - seeing if there's a correlation between seniority in different organisation sizes, and time in position.
This data is really shocking. I personally never thought in Male female Context. But i love the improvement in Female Participation. Jackelyn your research is remarkable. Its a unique and very very interesting article. I loved to read it.
This is an interesting breakdown. Most of the people I've worked with in digital marketing in the US have been women! I have encountered more men in the same roles overseas though.
Such a great insight view of the industry personnel however, i am surprised to see women gets less than men in 70% of the positions. I think unequality should not be the case whatsoever.
"Comparing salaries for job titles, we can see that the differences in salary permeate through nearly all levels and functions.We show that men make more than women as business owners, consultants, and specialists."
I don't think the data supports that statement. It shows that women in the Specialist roles actually make more than Men. Also, the role of "Business Owner" and "Consultant" don't really seem like a good measure of a salary bias since most business owners and consultants are paying themselves.
So of all the positions listed only one shows a statisticaly significant bias with women making more than men at the equivalent level and function.
Thank you for catching that... that was a typo. We fixed it :)
Regarding your second statement, I agree that there are levels and positions that show women make more than men. It's interesting to look at the data from different angles. On one hand, men make more than women (overall), and on the other hand, there are certain functions/level that women make more. Many times, the levels that women make more are lower-paying positions (specialist, analyst, project management). Also, I know many consultants are self-employed, but many marketers working at agencies call themselves consultants as well.
I don't know why that is happening, although it would be really interesting to know! If I were to guess, I might say more women are joining online marketing, have experience and higher-level degrees, but taking entry-level positions. So, maybe women are making more in those positions? Just a thought, I have absolutely no data to back it up. What do you think? -Jackie
My guess is that in general women and men make about the same at each position and level. However, as the Job Level chart clearly shows there are much fewer women at the higher paying levels like Business Owner and Director. So even if men and women are making about the same at each individual level, men are making much more overall since they occupy the higher paying positions.
Also, I'd guess "time in position" plays a role in women making even more than a man in a certain position. Consider a hypothetical situation where a man and a woman both enter the industry at the same time as Specialists making the same amount. After a year the man is promoted to Manager, while the woman is passed up for promotion but given a raise.
I think the salary discrepancy we see in the industry has less to do with misogynistic managers purposely paying women less, and more to do with a subtle bias of managers to promote women less.
Hello Jackie,
Thanks for sharing this data.
Carmen
I wanted to stop by and say I really enjoyed reading some of the comments and discussions of this and found it interesting. Thanks for all the time and effort of everyone.
Well, I am surprised to see the Indian gender data as 90% male and around only 10% female. I know there are restrictions on ladies not to work in india and even some rules and culture not allow them to work but still I can say there will be a big change in upcoming years, and we can see difference in % of women in india as well :)
Also, I am quite impressed to canadinan women, they going great, keep going !
Thanks for the outstanding data Jackelyn Magwire, good to read and a big thumps up :)
I'm excited to say as the Director of our Paid Search team, that our ratio is reverse that above, not only in specialists but also in management. Our split is actually 1 female director, 3 female to 1 male manager, and 12 female specialists to 5 male specialists. That's almost a 75/25 split. We actively seek both male and female, trained and entry level, so it's been a fun surprise to see the split flip flop from industry averages.
If there are still marketing companies out there that wont hire women then they need to realize who they are selling their products to... Hiring women will give you prospective of what other women will want to see when shopping and just as a joking stereotype aren't women the ones who shop a lot why wouldn't you want to cater to them??
You are quite right Ronell!
What was the sample size for Australians in this data? I run a few large online marketing events in Australia so I get a general idea of the gender mix. Would be interested to see more AU specific data, also what level of employee would submit this data for Australia? Thanks =)
Hello James! Great question. The total number of Australian survey participants is 102. Unfortunately, it was too small to do any sort of deep analysis. If your interested in poking through some of the numbers-- you can download the raw data from Dr. Pete's post.
There were 127.1 million working age women (16 years of age and older, civilian non-institutional population) in the U.S. in 2013 – 72.7 million were in the labor force.
Of the 127 million women of working age, 99.5 million were White, 16.6 million were Black or African American, 7.1 million were Asian, and 18.7 million were of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity.
Between 2012 and 2022 the number of women in the civilian labor force is expected to increase by 5.4 percent, compared to a 5.6 percent increase in the number of men.
Although the number of women and men is expected to increase, overall labor force participation rates are expected to decline. Women are projected to represent 46.8 percent of labor force in 2022.
No if online marketing will be divided into genres or not, but I am sure that women are some cracks in this online marketing. Especially in the content part.
Fascinating data. I was surprised the ratio of males in social media was found even to be that high - I have probably met thirty or fifty female social media managers over the years but still can't recall one male (!)....where for paid search and SEO it absolutely feels more like a 50/50 or 40/60 split. Very thought provoking.
Thank you for your analysis!
More and more women are in SEO expert, a world that until recently was considered a man's world. Fortunately, this is changing.
There are countries in which this can be seen more than others, such as in the US or UK. In my country there are still many but increasingly they are seeing more and also very good.
At the end we get equality, but much remains to be done.
Nice article!
Well the stats show it all. we live in a society that is gender biased.
But is it that women are discouraged from taking up such jobs or do most women not prefer to take jobs in these sector?
Speaking from an Indian point of view, yes women were discouraged from the marketing business until very recently. But as the stats show, there has been an increase in the number of female participants.
In our digital marketing company factorial.net we have many women who are handling the main operations and I must say these at excellent at what they do.
Digital Marketing provides an exciting job platform and women should take up the jobs if they are good at it.
my name is sunil kumar kaushik . i think very good analysis report. but i do not understand. What is effect of this blog on seo market. analysis report is very good and nice clear.
thank you
Thanks, very good text, I like it!
It could have to do with the fact that women stay home at the end of a pregnancy for several weeks to several years, in the middle of a time when their male counterparts are getting ample experience from their late 20's to early 30's. This disruption in both their work experience (gaps in resume) and having to play "catch-up" with all the technological leaps that may have occurred, men proceed up the ladder simply through attrition. Jay Leno has an excellent story about why he was able to climb through the ranks in comedy. His story about waiting in line at a comedy club to be an "open miker" he would stand in line and then someone ahead of him would go get something to eat, then someone would get tired of waiting and would leave the line... each time, he moved closer to the front - simply through attrition. Women hate it when this aspect of the workplace is brought up, but I work at a company with 50 or so employees in marketing, IT and merchandising. There are 4 women pregnant right now and they will be gone in the next few weeks. Who will fill this workplace gap? A permanent employee? I have seen 3 cases of women that took their paid time off after they had a child and then just quit when the benefits ran out. One of them, took the job to get insurance and then a month later it was revealed that she was pregnant. It might be considered legal to do this and illegal to ask if a woman is pregnant, but if you defend taking advantage of the system in this way, you've never owned a business...or you charge $5.00 for a 25 cent cup of coffee. I also disagree with the notion that there is inequality. Many women simply don't like the one-sided type of thinking that it takes to be an engineer. Women use both sides of their brains in concert, which is why they are better at multi-tasking. Engineering is predominantly a one-sided manner - so why is this considered bad. Each gender (sex) gravitates toward their strength. I think articles like this are just biased, sad, normally filled with half-truths and manufactured statistics. Like this: "Studies have also shown that creating a more gender-diverse organization will boost a company's profits. " That is correlation not causation! Perhaps a company grew large enough to begin hiring more employees, some of which are women. Pointing to this correlation and claiming it is evidence is mischievous at best. Worst article on this site, to date. Normally a big fan, not today.
Hi Lou,
Sorry this one didn't resonate, and thanks for taking the time to detail your thoughts. I'd like to discuss a few of them. =)
I don't think it's fair to generalize an argument about pregnancy to all women. For one thing, the decision to have a baby is most often made by more than one person, and blaming women for being the ones whose bodies are biologically necessary to bring those babies to term and ensure their physiologically necessary bonding with their parents isn't anywhere near fair. A bit of empathy makes that clear.
Your original premise has some truth to it -- a great many women have certainly lost a great many opportunities for advancement and career growth because of the time they spent starting (or continuing) a family -- but my point is that's a shame. Women shouldn't need to give up their career ambitions and opportunities just to have the opportunity to bear that particular burden of life.
People take leave all the time, and while it's often conveniently possible just to let their work pile up for the time they're away, a far more effective approach would be to work with the person leaving (male or female, for whatever purpose, be it starting a family or vacationing in New Zealand) to ensure no important tasks fall through the cracks and that the right help is lined up beforehand, be that in-house or hired. I don't see how a longer period of leave should be any different.
"Many women simply don't like the one-sided type of thinking that it takes to be an engineer." This is a seriously dangerous generalization to make. I've never seen any convincing evidence that women's brains work differently than men's (claims like that need references), and blanket statements like that only lead to people being and feeling excluded, like they don't belong. The world isn't nearly so black and white, and we're all smart enough to see the beauty in shades of gray.
And, re: correlation and causation, I think it's incredibly dangerous to dismiss statistics merely because they represent a correlative relationship instead of a causal relationship. So does Rand. Of course companies won't magically make more money simply because they hire more women. That doesn't mean that hiring more women won't take important steps in a more lucrative direction. I could easily see how a more gender-balanced workforce could lead to a greater diversity of ideas and opinions, greater innovation in products and audience targeting, and a host of other circumstances beneficial to revenue.
This isn't an easy conversation to have, and seeing the bigger picture requires many of us to step back and realize the history behind it as well as re-examine what seems "fair" at face value. Would love to hear more of your thoughts.
Can I just ask, what would be your perspective on an unequal distribution which favours women? Would that automatically qualify as 'discrimination against men'?
On the one hand, I wouldn't accept that premise, as nobody is claiming that an unequal distribution is inherently discriminatory. So my answer to your question would be no -- there'd be nothing automatic about it.
But when you dive deeper into the data Jackie went over, and read up on the background of the situation (check out Erica's reply below), it quickly becomes clear that this unequal distribution is not only the result of past discrimination, but that discrimination continues in the form of a wage gap and a startling lack of women in positions higher up various ladders. Reading through that "job level" graph, for example, had my jaw on the floor.
Trevor, great post! I don't want to open a political debate, but I did want to address some underlying themes in your comment on the philosophy of business and why companies exist and how that relates to motherhood.
The dominant theme in the United States since the 1970s has been the idea that the sole reason that businesses exist is to "maximize shareholder value." (The idea is from Milton Friedman.) Basically, it's the idea that companies should make as much money (for the shareholders) as possible by whatever legal means. If that means not hiring women who are at an age where they may be viewed as likely to conceive and take time off, then that is the proper thing to do. The company's first loyalty is always to themselves (actually, the shareholders).
In contrast, the dominant theme in Europe is what's called the stakeholder theory. It's the idea that many more people than only the shareholders have a stake in a company's success. The company pays corporate taxes that fund government services. Employee wages are funneled into the overall economy through consumer purchases. In short, it's not a view that businesses are parasites that merely want to grow themselves at the expense of everyone else -- it's a view that businesses are functioning members of society that play a role therein. So, companies are happy to lose immediate revenue in order to help society by helping new mothers -- an action that I'd argue increases overall profits in the long run.
It's probably obvious, but I favor the latter philosophy. I don't work for Moz and cannot speak for them, but I'd argue that they probably feel the same way.
Computer science started off as a women-dominated field. The first computer science language was invented by a woman - Ada Lovelace - who worked with Charles Babbage on his machine. Grace Hopper developed the first compiler for computer programming, which lead to the development of COBOL, which was one the early widely-used computer language. (Hopper was also an admiral in the Navy.)
Until the mid-80s, computer science and computer work were dominated by women. It was seen as a similar task as being a typist and secretary. (Which many men couldn't type since they relied on women to do this work.) It was only when computer companies started making MONEY hand-over-fist and computer engineering jobs became highly paid that women were run out of the work by men wanting those higher paying and now prestigious jobs.
Yes, it's true that unfortunately, many women drop out of tech jobs shortly after they have a baby. But this isn't a vast conspiracy to drain companies of their resources. Instead, any major change in someone's life causes them to think about what's important, and in a survey of 716 women who left tech (most after having children) all said that they left the industry due to how they were treated. There are some major efforts right now around re-recruiting from what's called the leaky pipeline.
Progressive companies, like Moz, offer equal time off for maternity or paternity leave. It would be great if all companies did this. I can empathize with having to fill in for coworkers out of paternal leave for new members of their families because this too has been part of my work story. However, I'm also secure that those coworkers (male and female) will come back because our company treats them well and we treat them well. Sometimes it sucks a lot and I'm not a person who enjoys babies in any way, but I'm not going to begrudge them for starting families.
Your comments around pregancy very much reek of outdated attitudes about risks of women due to having uteruses. No one has control over what reproductive organs they are born with, and not only is it illegal to discriminate against women for pregnancy or ask about pregnancy, it's dangerously biased to think of women as ticking timebombs for pregnancy and maternity leave. Directly, I'm the perfect age to "have babies" and do you not hire me or give me a promotion or large task because I might have a baby? How many men have passed me by due to this sexist stereotype of me turning into a Tribble and suddenly unplanned, thoughtless reproduction might happen?
Many of your assertions about how women's brains work are not only insulting, but incredibly outdated. For example, multi-tasking is a myth created by corporations to make us workers feel bad about our productivity. These stereotypes of women's brains continue to contribute to institutional sexism in our culture. Biologicial everyone's brains are basically the same. Gender is a social construct, and anything men are supposed to have compared to women, we are taught these differences and we can all learn to have "masculine" or "feminine" traits.
I'm just leaving this comment to say that Erica rules. :)
*big thumbs up*
You're the best Erica. I feel privileged and humbled to get to work alongside you, especially when mysogynistic stuff like this rears its ugly head.
Exactly, Erica,
It depends on, how company treat them after maternity leave. All this, reminds me of the famous quote of William Golding "I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men; they are far superior and always have been."
Whatever the solution to this problem is—assuming there even is a problem—I'm quite certain it's not sexism against men. Shame on you, Vishal, and shame on those of you who thumbed up his comment.
Hi Lou,
I certainly respect your right to share your thoughts on this post or any other. However, as it regards women in science or in the workplace, you could not be more wrong.
It's hard to reconcile your words with the rich history of women in science and engineering. Names like Curie and Meitner and Edith Clarke and Sally Ride come to mind. And to suggest that women should simply work harder and, maybe not get pregnant, as the way for them to get ahead, defies logic.
This "argument" has been around for ages and, given how bright us men are, I'm sure we could easily have solved such a simple issue were it the real root of the problem :)
RS