A new report called Fix the Mix has highlighted a significant gender pay gap and lack of women and non-binary people in music tech roles across the industry.
The report, produced by We Are Moving the Needle, Jaxsta, Middle Tennessee State University, and Howard University, found that women and non-binary people were more likely to be credited in junior roles in music tech fields than in senior roles, with a lack of representation in jobs such as audio and production engineering.
The top 10 streamed tracks of 2022 across digital service providers credited only 16 of the 240 producers and engineers as women and non-binary people, which totals 6.4%. Additionally, the credits held by women and non-binary people in the top 10 were mostly assistant roles rather than key roles.
The report calls for major music industry players and individuals to drive measurable change by providing more well-funded diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for women and non-binary producers and engineers.
The study found that the electronic music genre has a relatively high representation of women and non-binary people in producer roles, accounting for 17.6% of all producer credits on the top 50 songs of 2022, but 37 of the 50 top-streamed electronic tracks credited no women or non-binary people in any technical roles.
Read the full report here.
