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image from Bianca Bagnarelli
Since time immemorial, the corporate world has struggled to hire and welcome competent women into core fields of work and research. The gender gap is and has always been a stagnant problem prevailing in almost all industries worldwide. Although there has been remarkable progress in this matter, we still have a long way to go.
While every work sector has its own fair share of challenges to overcome, the Data Analytics field must consider accommodating more women in their crucial roles, such as programmers, data analysts or data architects. If they start practising equality in hiring, the solutions can prove more holistic in their foundation.
Statistic records suggest that 59% of the American corporate world is female. However, in the US data analytics industry, only 27% of professionals are women, although a good number of women are completing their degrees in data and statistics. It is legitimate to ask : why such a gap exists?
More than that : It is not just the gap that is alarming to all; it is also the pay gap which further discourages the female workforce.
The gender pay gap highlights the disparity between applicants and the core contributing reason why women are undervalued and underrepresented in offices. A 2016 survey conducted by the US congress Joint Economic Committee discovered that female workers were given 21% less salary than male workers.
To understand the complexity of pay-gap better, let us dive in to explore the layers of such unfair calculations.
Did you know that only 22% of the European Data Analytics workforce comprises women? The rest is all occupied by the male members of society. After this vast gap in the ratio of working men and women in data analytics surfaced, efforts were put to bridge the gap as and when possible. Quite recently, the percentage of women in the field has increased slightly; many are still deprived of equal opportunities.
Talking of other countries, Germany witnessed a drop in women in the field by 5%, while the Nordics experienced no change since last year. Looking towards the better side, France was perhaps the only country which witnessed a spike of 28% (increase of 20%) in the percentage of women in the field, coming the closest to gender parity in the whole of Europe.
However, this is not the same for other regions in Europe. The stats of the Dutch and Nordic industries explains a potential dent in diversity, with the latter inflating gender parity and the former welcoming more women than men in the field.
In the opposite way, Germany reported only 10% of new entries by women, and 44% fell from the current average.
Has it ever crossed your mind why women are reluctant to join data analytics, although it is highly promising in this tech-driven world?
On reason could be because of the unfair pay gap that women are subjected. In 2021, a survey in Europe suggested that the average salary of a man in the data analytics field was €60,000, whereas that of a woman was found to be €54,900 – a gender-based pay gap of 13%. This is not the worst that we see because last year, the pay gap was 14%, and a year earlier, it was 18.5%.
There is indeed variation across the countries surveyed, with France and the Nordics showing a closing gap, witnessing a steady increase in the percentage of women in the industry. The pay gap in France dropped to just 5%, while the gap in the Nordics fell to 7%. Even Germany witnessed a gradual decline in the pay gap percentage last year. However, on the grey side, the Dutch pay gap remains high at 24%, adding to the stagnancy of the problem.
Also, it is to be noted that the pay gap is higher for women freshers than the ones who are experienced in data analytics – a very discouraging approach towards the future women data analysts in Europe.
In US, the situation is pretty similar with an average gender pay gap of 14% in the Data & Analytics industry.
Amongst the women who struggle to make it through the narrow percentage of data analysts in Europe, very few make it to the top. From a total of 34% of entry-level women joiners, only 11% represent the leadership roles in the data analytics field. A significant number of women are pushed down the ladder of success based on their gender. Crucial roles such as the Head of the Department, director, chairman, lead executive etc., are beyond the reach of female employees.
Also, we must not ignore the fact that in the senior most roles, the gender pay gap only increases, exhibiting a 38% difference at the Head of/Director level! As we can infer, there are layers to this issue, and it only seems to get uglier.
With respect to the age distribution of data analytics professionals , the survey conducted by Harnham last year discovered that 65% of the Data & Analytics workforce was below the age of 35. If the issue of gender disparity was not enough to haunt the data analytics industry, the age divide added to the turmoil. However, this year has witnessed a drop to 54%, and there could be various reasons for this decline. Firstly, most young employees lost their positions because of COVID-19 related issues.
For others, they chose to rather reskill and shift to a different domain of work. Despite the percentage decline, the data analytics industry still falls into the 25-34 age bracket. On average, however, the standard age of the employees in the industry is 35.
Upon considering the various layers of the deep-rooted gender gap problem, we can safely assume that the issue, however dense, has started to surface. Changes have been adopted, and the gender disparity has narrowed in certain parts of Europe, if not all. Since we are looking at a problem which is ancient in its origin, we must investigate the issue to its roots and find a solution based on equality.
We can only encourage women to join the workforce if we make the data analytics field a safe and welcoming place for them. Several factors like pay disparity, discrimination in lead roles, discrimination in recruitment, lack of consideration etc., must be attended to urgently.
Reference : Surveys 2021-2022 from Harnham “Data & Analytics US Diversity” and “Harnham EU Diversity in Data Report” https://www.harnham.com/
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