Study Analyzes the Gender Pay Gap in the OECD and EU Technology Industry, Revealing the Best Opportunities for Women

• Portugal, The United States and Latvia offer the best opportunities for women in tech, with an industry gender pay gap around 6-7% less than the overall average wage gap in each country.
• The United States offers the highest wages to women working in tech, at $86,608 per annum, followed by Ireland ($60,558) and Switzerland ($59,029).
• At 30%, Bulgaria has the highest percentage of women working in tech, followed by Australia with 28% and Romania at 26%. 

Berlin, Germany, 21/03/2018 — With gender disparity a topic at the forefront of modern discourse, leading technology career platform Honeypot, has released the 2018 Women in Tech Index. The results offer a view on gender-based employment inequalities both at large and in the technology sector. In an effort to position themselves as industry experts, the developer-focused career platform decided to research the role that gender parity plays in the technology landscape by comparing the proportion of female employees, gender wage gap and opportunities for women in the IT field, among other criteria. In sharing the results of this study, Honeypot aims to highlight which countries offer the best opportunities for women in tech and to encourage the industry at large to take further positive steps towards gender parity. 

The study focuses on 41 countries in the OECD and EU, and offers comparable data relating to both the tech industry and the wage gap. The data covers areas such as: 

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• Gender in the Overall Economy: factors such as percentage of women in work and the overall gender income parity.
• Women in Tech: as measured by the number of women in IT positions compared to the overall numbers of people in tech.
• Opportunities for Women in Tech: calculated by comparing the difference between the percentage share of women in the general workforce, and the percentage of women in the technology sector. In addition, the study took into account the percentage of female STEM graduates.
• Tech Wage Gap: difference in gender wage gap between women working in the tech industry and the overall workforce at large.
• Female Career Progression: as judged by the percentage of women in managerial and ministerial positions. 

Finally, to bring attention to any potential barriers which might hinder a woman’s progression in the tech industry and to highlight the best opportunities for women, the Gender Inequality Index was analysed. This reviews women’s reproductive health, empowerment and labor market participation to conclude overall parity. To determine if equality has increased or decreased in recent history, we then calculated the difference between the current available wage gap data, as compared to five years previous. 

“Gender parity in the workplace is not just an ethical or moral issue, but also an economic one: McKinsey found that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality.  As tech recruitment specialists, we are often confronted with the gender imbalances of the industry, which are fully exposed in this study.” says Emma Tracey, co-founder at Honeypot. “The results reveal the countries which have the most to offer women looking to progress in the tech industry, with Portugal, The United States and Latvia highlighted as the top three nations that have taken positive steps towards gender parity in the technology field in terms of fairer wages. However, with the proportion of female tech workers remaining under 30 percent across the board, we hope that this study will enrich the conversation concerning equality in this industry and inspire more women to seek out opportunities in tech.”

Revealed below is a sample of the results for United States: 

To view the full results, please see: https://www.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-2018 

Revealed below is a sample of the results from the top 20 countries offering the best opportunities for women in tech, calculated by comparing the difference between the overall gender pay gap and the pay gap in the technology industry. A positive number demonstrates that the income disparity in tech is less than the overall average in that country, indicating that female tech workers have been afforded fairer wages. E.G. the % Difference of Overall and Tech Gender Pay Gap in Portugal is 7.26%, which indicates that the Portuguese tech pay gap is 7.26% better than the overall wage gap. A negative number, for example in Ireland at -3.13% indicates that women in tech are 3.13% worse off salary-wise than in the average profession. 

Comparison of Gender Pay Gap from 2010 to 2015: indicates the percentage that the gender wage disparity has increased or decreased in the past 5 years, (as most current available data is from 2015). A positive number, for example in France, indicates that the way gap has increased by 3.44%. A negative number, for example in Iceland, indicates that wage disparity has improved by 2.29%. 

N.B. A full methodology is available at the bottom of this press release. This is a sample of the full results, which can be viewed here: https://www.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-2018 

Further findings:

• The United States has the highest number of women in the labor force, with 74.43 million. Malta has the least number of women in their workforce, at 80,000.
• Lithuania has the highest percentage of female workforce, at 51.17%, one of only two (alongside Latvia at 50.25%) countries in the index that have a higher percentage of women than men in their workforce. Turkey has the smallest percentage of female workforce, at 31.55%.
• Latvia has the highest percentage of women legislators, senior officials and managers at 44.4%, while South Korea has the least with 10.7%.
• Sweden has the highest percentage of women in parliament positions, at 44.5%, while Japan has the least, at 9.9%.
• Finland has the highest percentage of women in ministerial positions at 62.5%. Notably, France is the only country with 50% of its ministerial cabinet made up of women. Hungary and the Slovak Republic both have zero women in ministerial positions.
• Luxembourg has the highest overall wage for women, at $59,191 per annum. Bulgaria has the lowest, at $12,278.
• The overall gender pay gap is largest in South Korea, at 37.18% and joint lowest in Italy and Luxembourg, at 5.5%.
• The United States has the most employees working in the tech industry, around 6 million, while Malta and Iceland have the least, at around 7,000.
• 04% of Finland’s labor force is in the technology industry, the highest in the index. 0.8% of Turkey’s labor force works in tech, the lowest in the index.
• The United States has the most women working in the tech industry, at just under 1.5 million. Malta has the least, with 800 women working in tech.
• Bulgaria has the highest percentage of women working in tech, at 30.28%. The Slovak Republic has the smallest percentage of women working in tech, at 9.29%.
• Israel has the largest difference between the percentage of overall women working, and the percentage of women working in tech, at -36.6%. Romania has the smallest difference, at -16.57%.
• Turkey has the highest percentage of female STEM graduates, at 37.11%, while Japan has the least, at 15.25%.
• The United States offers the highest wage both overall in tech and for women in tech, at $98,265 and $86,608 respectively. Mexico offers the lowest wages in tech, both overall and for women, at $19,492 and $,15456 respectively.
• Turkey has the lowest gender pay gap in the tech industry, at 8.42%. South Korea has the highest, at 41.17%.
• Portugal has the highest positive difference in percentage of tech pay gap as compared to overall wage gap, at 7.26%. Poland has the highest negative difference in percentage of tech pay gap as compared to overall wage gap, at -17.8%.
• Switzerland has the best Gender Inequality Score, at 0.04, while Mexico has the worst, at 0.345.
• South Korea had the highest overall gender pay gap in 2010, at 39.61%. Slovenia had the lowest overall gender pay gap in 2010, at 0.95%.

Romania’s gender pay gap has improved by 3% from 2010 to 2015, while women in Slovenia were paid 7.15% less in 2015 than they were 5 years previously.

Methodology 

This study focuses on 41 countries which are part of the OECD and the EU, due to comparably collected data relating to the technology industry and the gender wage gap. 

Criteria

Total Workforce (Millions): Annual labor force, Persons, in Millions. Source: OECD Statistics, Eurostat.

Female Workforce (Millions): Annual labor force, Persons, in Millions, Women. Source: OECD Statistics, Eurostat.

% Women: The number of women in the labor force, depicted as a percentage.

% Women Legislators, Senior Officials, and Managers: The percentage of women in senior or managerial positions, with a higher percentage indicating a higher level of parity in terms of career progression. Taken from the World Economic Forum Report: Female, male legislators, senior officials and managers (%): Major Group 1 of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). Source : ILO, ILOSTAT database, employment by occupation, 2016, or latest available data.

% Women in Parliament: World Economic Forum Report: Percentage of women in the lower or single house. Source is the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments. Data reflects information provided by National Parliaments by 1 September 2016.

% Women in Ministerial Positions: World Economic Forum Report: Percentage of women holding ministerial portfolios, such as Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance. Some overlap between ministers and heads of state that also hold a ministerial portfolio may occur. Source: The Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in Politics 2015, reflecting appointments up to 1 January 2015. Data is updated every two years.

Overall Workforce Average Wage (US$), Women's Average Wage (US$), Gender Pay Gap (%): The average wage, across all professions, for both men and women and the percentage difference between them, known as the Gender Pay Gap, using most current available data (2015). Sources: OECD, Eurostat. Average of both sources. Eurostat: difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women expressed as a percentage of the average gross hourly earnings of men. OECD: difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men. Data refers to full-time employees and to self-employed workers.

Tech Workforce (Thousands): ICT Persons, Thousands. Sub-major group 25 of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). Professionals: Information and communications technology professionals. By definition, the information and communication sector has been created, combining activities involving production and distribution of information and cultural products, provision of the means to transmit or distribute these products, as well as data or communications, information technology activities and the processing of data and other information service activities. The main components of this section are publishing activities, including software publishing (division 58), motion picture and sound recording activities (division 59), radio and TV broadcasting and programming activities (division 60), telecommunications activities (division 61) and information technology activities (division 62) and other information service activities (division 63). Source: Eurostat.

% Workforce in Tech: The percentage of people (of all genders) working in the information and communication technology sector out of the overall labor force.

Female Tech Workforce (Thousands): Number of women in the information and communication technology sector out of the total labor force.

% Women in Tech: The percentage of women working in the information and communication technology sector out of the total labor force working in ICT.

Female STEM Graduates (%): The percentage of STEM graduates who are female, taken from the World Economic Forum Report. Source: UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics database (accessed September 2016). Measures the percentage of female and male graduates in ISCED 5-8 programs from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (% of total number of graduates).

 Tech Average Wage (US$): Average annual wage in ICT (as defined above). Annual in USD PPP (Purchasing power parities), adjusted to OECD PPP wage level and EU PPP wage level. Sources: OECD, Eurostat, local reports.

Tech Average Wage for Women (US$): Average annual wage in ICT (as defined above), women, in USD PPP (Purchasing power parities), taking into account the wage gap in ICT and average wage in ICT. Sources: OECD, Eurostat, local reports.

Gender Pay Gap in Tech (%): Wage gap in the ICT sector (as defined above). Sources: Eurostat, OECD, local reports.
               
% Difference of Overall Gender Pay Gap and Gender Pay Gap in Tech: The percentage difference between the gender pay gap in ICT and overall gender pay gap. A positive number implies that women in tech are more fairly paid, in comparison to other professions.

Gender Inequality Index: A score of 0 = equality, the higher the score, the worse the inequality. The closer the score is to 0, the more equal a country is. Gender inequality Index (2015). Source: Human Development Report.

Gender Pay Gap 2010: Gender pay gap (as defined above), data from 2010. In the case of Chile: 2011 as 2010 was not available.

Comparison of Gender Pay Gap From 2010 to 2015: Difference between the current wage gap and the wage gap 5 years ago. A positive number implies a positive increase, I.E. the gender pay gap has increased. A negative number implies that the gender pay gap has decreased.

Exchange rate correct as of 26.02.2018. 1 USD =0.81 Euro, 0.71 British Pound.