Nashville may be the best city for women-owned businesses, but DC is the best city for women in tech. This is the second year in a row that the capital region has earned the title, according to a report produced by SmartAsset, a financial software company. Kansas City, MO was also the runner up for the second year in a row.
In DC, the gender pay gap for women in computer and mathematical occupations is almost non-existent (women earn 99.3 percent of what men earn), the average annual income after housing cost is almost $60,000 and 40 percent of the city’s tech jobs are filled by women (compared to San Francisco where 75 percent of the tech workforce is men).
SmartAsset looked at the U.S. Census Bureau American Communities Survey for 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. They pulled statistics on women and men in “computer and mathematical occupations” throughout the U.S. They only looked at cities where the tech workforce was large enough to be statistically significant – 58 total. The cities were then scored on the following metrics: women as a percentage of the tech workforce, gender pay gap in tech, income after housing costs (median income for women in computer and mathematical occupations minus typical housing costs such as real estate taxes, insurance and mortgage payments), and three year tech employment growth for both men and women.
Some interesting findings:
- The 2016 analysis reflects no significant progress in either employment or pay for women in tech.
- Across the country the ratio of women in computer and mathematical occupations fell from 27.1 percent in 2011 to 26.5 percent in 2014.
- Portland Oregon came in last place with a gender pay gap of 80.1 percent and only 24 percent of tech jobs filled by women.
- There is a significant positive correlation (49 percent) between tech industry representation for women and pay equity in the 58 cities analyzed.
- At tech industry leader Amazon, women only hold 11 percent of technical positions.
