8 charts that show the impact of race and gender on technology careers

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Natalie Marchant, Writer, Formative Content

• 57% of women working in tech have experienced gender discrimination in the workplace, compared to just 10% of men, according to career website Dice.
• Black respondents were more likely to have experienced racial discrimination in the tech sector compared to any other group.
• Gender and race were also shown to affect respondents’ experience of burnout in the workplace.
• Workplace diversity has been shown to improve everything from innovation to profitability.

Much work has been done to close gaps in gender and race equality in the tech industry, but a new report indicates there’s still more needed.

Careers website Dice’s Equality In Tech report asked more than 9,000 technologists about their overall career satisfaction and concluded more must be done to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

Here’s how gender and race impacted those working in the tech industry.

Gender discrimination in the workplace

When asked if they had experienced gender discrimination in the tech industry, 57% of women respondents said they had, compared to only 10% of men.

Nearly half (48%) of women also reported seeing discrimination in terms of their technical abilities – double that of men.

Racial discrimination in the workplace

Dice also asked about experiencing racial discrimination in the tech sector and found Black respondents were most likely to have seen it than all other groups, at 48%.

This was followed by Hispanic/Latino(a) respondents at 30%, Asian/Pacific Islanders at 25%, Asian Indian respondents at 23% and White respondents at 9%.

Gender pay gap

The Equality in Tech report also found that more women (35%) were dissatisfied with their current compensation compared to their male colleagues (29%).

However, women were also less likely to have actively negotiated their salary at their most recent new job – with 44% of women saying they had compared to 49% of men.

Racial pay gap

Pay inequality has been a long-running issue in the tech industry and it is still impacting how employees from various backgrounds feel about their salary.

While six in 10 White respondents said they were satisfied with their salary, just half of Black technologists felt similarly, along with 49% of both Hispanic/Latino(a) and Asian/Pacific Islander respondents and 45% of Asian Indian participants.

Satisfaction with career by gender

Women in the tech industry were also found to be less satisfied with their overall career than their male peers – with a total of 63% saying they were very or somewhat satisfied, compared to 68% of men.

Satisfaction with career by ethnicity

White employees working in the tech industry were found to be significantly more satisfied with their careers (at 69%) compared to their Hispanic/Latino(a) (66%), Black (61%), Asian/Pacific Islander (61%) and Asian Indian (58%) colleagues.

Burnout experience by gender

Women technologists (32%) were more likely to report higher levels of burnout than men (30%), with workload and hours worked the biggest contributory factor for both. However, women were more likely to suffer due to overall COVID-19 stress – with 20% reporting pandemic stress opposed to 15% of men.

Burnout experience by ethnicity

About a third of all those in the tech industry feel burned out, regardless of ethnicity. Those with a Hispanic/Latino(a) or Asian Indian background reported the highest levels of burnout at 33%, followed by White (31%), Asian/Pacific Islander (30%) and then Black (25%). Hispanic/Latino(a) technologists reported significantly higher pandemic stress, at 23%, than peers.

Making the tech industry more inclusive

While acknowledging efforts by the tech industry to improve gender and racial diversity, equality and inclusion in the workplace, Dice concludes more needs to be done.

In terms of gender, the report emphasizes the importance of allyship to the success of organizational schemes focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, adding that allies with privilege and power – regardless of level – can help women advocate for their needs.

When it comes to racial equality, the report says managers need to do all they can to build an inclusive and supportive culture – including advocating for new hiring and retention policies – to build and support a diverse workplace culture.

What’s the World Economic Forum doing about diversity, equity and inclusion?

The COVID-19 pandemic and recent social and political unrest have created a profound sense of urgency for companies to actively work to tackle inequity.

The Forum’s work on Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Social Justice is driven by the New Economy and Society Platform, which is focused on building prosperous, inclusive and just economies and societies. In addition to its work on economic growth, revival and transformation, work, wages and job creation, and education, skills and learning, the Platform takes an integrated and holistic approach to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice, and aims to tackle exclusion, bias and discrimination related to race, gender, ability, sexual orientation and all other forms of human diversity.

The Platform produces data, standards and insights, such as the Global Gender Gap Report and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0 Toolkit, and drives or supports action initiatives, such as Partnering for Racial Justice in Business, The Valuable 500 – Closing the Disability Inclusion Gap, Hardwiring Gender Parity in the Future of Work, Closing the Gender Gap Country Accelerators, the Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality, the Community of Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officers and the Global Future Council on Equity and Social Justice.

Equality in jobs of tomorrow

Dice’s findings for the tech industry have particular relevance as 84% of employers plan to accelerate their digitization agenda and 50% intend to speed up the automation of tasks.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021 warns that there are significant challenges for the future of gender parity in emerging jobs in this new world of work. For example, female representation remains under 25% in roles such as artificial intelligence specialist, cloud engineer and DevOps manager.

Measures such as making a longer shortlist when recruiting, using skills-based assessments and making work-life balance a priority can help address this imbalance and improve diversity in the workplace.

The World Economic Forum has also published a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0 toolkit for employers, with research suggesting that well-managed diverse teams significantly outperform homogenous ones – on everything from innovation to profitability and employee engagement.