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The Best Cities In U.S. For Women In Tech

by Milicent Atieno
The Best Cities In U.S. For Women In Tech

To a great extent, we all are a product of our environment. Depending on whether or not your environment promotes the development of certain traits, you will find people from a certain environment more pronounced with a certain trait than people from a different environment.

When it comes to technology, more specifically women in tech, the environment within which they operate can either make or break them. Some environment does encourage diversity and inclusion while others perpetuate discrimination and exclusion.

SmartAsset’s analysis of Census Bureau tabled a report revealing that within the tech industry, women hold 26% fewer tech jobs within the U.S. market. They are also paid 85% of what men in similar positions get paid. However, the really sad part is that in the big tech cities like San Francisco. The numbers of women in tech are far more underrepresented. Take for instance, in San Francisco; women occupy just about 21% of the tech jobs.

Washington D.C. for the second year in a row emerged at the top city in America for women in tech. The U.S. capital is ranked at position one for women in tech given women take up more than 40% of the tech jobs in the city. Also, both genders earn more or less the same pay for similar positions.

Following Washington D.C. in descending order in regards to the best U.S. cities for women in tech are Kansas, Missouri, Detroit, Michigan, Baltimore and Maryland.The Best Cities In U.S. For Women In Tech

SmartAsset used gender pay gap, income after housing costs and percentage of all tech and math jobs occupied by women. The three-year percentage growth in the city of tech jobs from 2011 to 2014 was also used in the ranking but not heavily weighted. The report also gave the following interesting summary:

*Capital regions employ more women in tech

*In most tech hub cities like San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose, women in tech make up about 75% of the workforce in tech

*Big tech companies have far fewer women employed in tech

*At Twitter, women make up 13% of the technical workforce

*At Amazon, women make up 11% of the technical workforce

*At Google, women make up 18% of the technical labour force

*At Microsoft, women hold just 16.9% of the technical labour force

*At Apple, women make up 22% of the technical labour force

*At Facebook, women make up 16% of the technical

Apart from the gender imbalance in the tech industry, another issue of concern is the underrepresentation of the Black, Hispanic and other minority groups. Recent headcounts by big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo revealed that Black employee make up just about 2% of the total workforce.

There has been an excuse being used by just about every industry tech leader, that there are not enough qualified minorities in the pipeline to fill up positions in tech companies. Many have come to denounce this excuse, with Congressman G.K. Butterfield (NC), the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus terming this excuse as “a myth”.

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