SmartAsset ranks “Best Cities for Women in Tech”
Financial advisory firm SmartAsset is out with its latest ranking, and this one is titled “Best Cities for Women in Tech.” Only one city from the Volunteer State made the list and, not surprising, it was Nashville.
According to the report, SmartAsset looked at data for cities with at least 200,000 residents. The firm removed cities from our data set that did not have statistically reliable data (i.e., the margin of error for average earnings for women who work in tech or the number of women working in tech was greater than 20 percent). Those two constraints left SmartAsset with 59 cities, which it compared across the following four metrics:
- Gender pay gap in the tech industry. This is the average earnings for women who work in tech as a percentage of average earnings for men who work in tech. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2020 five-year American Community Survey. The national average for gender pay gap was 83.56 percent.
- Earnings after housing. These are the median earnings for women who work in tech after subtracting the median housing costs. Data on both earnings and housing costs comes from the same Census Bureau’ survey. The national average was $58,845.
- Women as a percentage of the tech workforce. This is the percentage of all tech jobs held by women. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2020 five-year American Community Survey. National average is 26.14 percent.
- Three-year tech employment growth. This is the percentage change in tech jobs from 2017 through 2020. Data comes from a comparison of the Census Bureau’s 2017 and 2020 community surveys. National average growth is 16.96 percent.
So, who is doing the best? Arlington, VA and Washington, DC top the list at #1 and #2 respectively. Durham, NC comes in at #7 followed by Virginia Beach (#8), Cincinnati (#9), and Nashville (#11). Music City more than doubled the average national tech growth rate and recorded a gender pay differential of just over six percent. It was slightly below the percentage of the workforce and thousands of dollars below available income after housing.
