Lack of women and non-binary people working in music tech highlighted by new report

A new report has highlighted a lack of women and non-binary people in music tech roles across, calling for more action across the industry to reduce the "significant" gender pay gap.

The annual report named Fix The Mix has concluded that there should be more women and non-binary people in jobs such as audio and production engineering roles.

Findings uncovered by We Are Moving the Needle, Jaxsta, Middle Tennessee State University and Howard University show that workers from these groups were more likely to be credited in junior roles in the music tech field than senior roles.

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After discovering the top 10 streamed tracks of 2022 across digital service providers (DSPs), only 16 of the 240 credited producers and engineers are women and non-binary people which totals to 6.4%.

The report also shares that credits held by women and non-binary people in the top 10 were mostly within assistant roles than in key roles.

From the top 50 rap and metal songs of 2022, no women or non-binary people were credited with the technical aspect of any track.

Of the 14 genres accessed electronic music 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.

However, 37 of the 50 top-streamed electronic tracks credited no women or non-binary people in any technical roles.

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The report is calling for "major music industry players and individuals to drive measurable change" with more well-funded DEI initiatives for women and non-binary producers and engineers.

Co-author of the report, Beverly Keel, Dean of Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Media and Entertainment said according to NME: “While this research notes the genres that have the best and worst gender representations, it is important to note that every genre needs improvement in representation of women and non-binary people. It is difficult to fathom that representation remains so pitifully low in 2023.

“In any other industry, these low percentages of the genres that have the best gender representation would be an embarrassment, so I hope these ‘high achievers’ are not resting on their laurels.

“There should be no pride in being the best of the worst. It should go without saying that the genres with the lowest representation should convene their leaders to quickly develop solutions to this problem.”

Read the full Fix The Mix report here.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Video and Editorial Assistant, follow her on Twitter