Austin may top a variety of lists, making it a shining beacon to many newcomers, but a new list was just released where Austin fell woefully low. Smart Asset, a personal finance company, ranked Austin at number 55 on a list of the country’s best cities for women in technology-out of 58 cities.
According to the Austin Business Journal story:
SmartAsset calculated that Austin’s technology gender pay gap is 79.6 percent, meaning women typically earn less than 80 cents for every dollar their male peers earn in similar positions. That is below the national average of 86.7 percent. The study also found that 21.2 percent of Austin’s tech jobs are filled by women, again below the national average of 26.5 percent.
Even with Austin’s nickname of Silicon Hills, women are still highly underrepresented in technology fields, with Austin falling behind all other major Texas cities on the survey, including San Antonio (#51), Irving, (#41), Fort Worth (#38), Arlington (#28), Dallas (#25), Houston (#22), and Plano (#17). This discrepancy is something that could change, however, with some targeted actions, especially since Austin was recently ranked #2 on list of cities nearing equal pay for women. Here’s hoping Mayor Steve Adler takes notice of this report and takes some sort of action as he recently did for Austin’s music community.
