A new study ranks St. Louis as one of the worst major cities for women in technology jobs, with the region ranking near the bottom for pay disparity between men and women locally in the industry.
The study, published by financial website SmartAsset, ranks St. Louis second to last in its examination of 59 cities for gender pay gap in technology roles. In St. Louis, the average earnings of female technology employees is 71.4% of men’s. That’s well below the national gender pay gap of 83.6% in technology roles.
Only one city in SmartAsset’s study, Tulsa, Oklahoma, had a starker pay gap. In Tulsa, women earn 68.93% of what men do. The city with the narrowest pay gap in technology positions is Houston, where men earn 1.3% more than women.
Overall, SmartAsset ranked St. Louis 54 out of 59 in its rankings for best cities for women in technology. Its report focused on cities with at least 200,000 residents and its rankings were determined by gender pay gap, median earnings for female technology employees, the amount of women in the city’s technology workforce and overall technology growth for each city. Topping the rankings were Arlington, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and Houston.
In St. Louis, women make up 25.1% of the technology workforce, just below the national average of 26.1%. The median earnings, after housing costs, for local female technology workers is $46,376, below the national median of $58.845.
TechSTL, the recently launched technology council aimed at boosting the industry locally, has made one of its goals to diversify the region's technology sector, including the amount of women in the workforce. Emily Hemingway, executive director of TechSTL, said female technology job figures locally "aren't going up as quickly as we would hope to see, but there are shifts moving in the right direction."
She said further boosting the diversity of the region's technology workforce can help make St. Louis more competitive as a tech hub. TechSTL plans to soon roll out programming specifically focused on growing female representation in the technology industry locally.
"TechSTL is launching a 'Women in Tech Roundtable' this Fall to create more access points for female tech leaders and is doubling down on the power of social capital. To rapidly scale the amount of female representation in St. Louis tech firms, we need to expand the culture of inclusion and build more development pathways for women to move quickly into positions across the community. That work starts with being more visible and connected as a sector," Hemingway said.
On the gender pay gap, Hemingway said more transparency and accountability, specifically data, is needed to close the disparity.
"We can't force our hiring partners to systematically increase pay for women, but we can use data to shine a light on who is moving the needle forward and incentivize more regional transformation. Data-focused reporting can do a lot to move us towards more equitable pay standards and upward mobility practices for St. Louis," she said.
While St. Louis was near the bottom of SmartAsset's study, it included one bright spot for the region: St. Louis has had three-year technology employment growth of 38.1%, the fifth highest of the 59 cities examined. Nationally, technology employment has grown 16.9% over the past three years.
Overall, St. Louis lagged behind several other Midwest ranked in SmartAsset’s study, including Cincinnati (No. 9), Nashville (No. 11), Chicago (No. 22) and Kansas City (No. 40).
