Original Article: https://www.nme.com/news/music/new-study-confirms-women-are-underrepresented-in-popular-music-2896811
Image: NBC / GETTY IMAGES
With the recent turn of International Woman’s Day coming yesterday (8th March), new figures have emerged which show the alarming underrepresentation of woman across the music industry.
One study from the University of Southern California discovered that the Hot 100 year-end Billboard charts from 2012-2019 featured less than 23% of songs from female artists, while just 2 per cent of charting producers were women. That’s 800 tracks over seven years which represented less than 1/4 of females.
The same study also took to the Grammys, taking aim at Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Best New Artist, and Producer of the Year. Despite finding positive changes in 2021, women still only represented as low as 28.1% of nominees, with their representation falling to just 6.4% in 2017.
Despite artists of ethnic minorities making up around 45.4% of those featured in the top 800 songs found in the study, Pitchfork found that women of colour with producer credits were practically non-existent, with just eight out of a total 1,093 being represented on the charts.
PRS for Music, the organisation that looks after over 150,000 music creators and publishers, released figures from a study on International Women’s Day which showed there to be a massive financial gap between male and female artists.
Results proved that the top 10 highest earning female songwriters and composers earned 70% less than their male counterparts last year.
Underrepresentation of female artists, musicians and producers is not a new trend either, with many calling out major global festivals in recent years for their line-ups which predominantly feature male artists.