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So the April issue of Game Developer is out, which means -- you guessed it -- it's time for the yearly Game Developer Salary Survey. And unsurprisingly, coming off of plenty of gender-centered happenings at GDC last week (which were, in turn, preceded by gender-centered happenings elsewhere in tech the week before), a few folks cracked open the Salary Survey to discover that women in the game industry are generally paid significantly less than their male counterparts in any given development discipline.
First off: As the editor of the magazine, I'm really happy to see that people are paying attention to gender-related issues in the game industry, and I'm doubly happy to see that our work on the magazine is helping draw attention to it. (No one writes letters to the editor any more!) It's worth noting that these issues aren't particularly new, either; from what I can recall of previous salary surveys, the gender pay gap has stuck around in the games industry for quite some time. So: Props to those who saw these numbers and got "irate" (in the words of one Twitter user) -- you're not the only ones.
Second: It's worth pointing out that the notable exception is programming, where female devs are paid a few thousand more -- but given the fact that women programmers represented only 4% of surveyed programmers overall, and 2011's survey had women programmers making $10,000 less than men, I'm inclined to think that this year's result is an outlier rather than indicative of an industrywide trend; the raw data indicates that those numbers came from a pool of 494 male programmers and 22 female programmers. Which leads me to my next point...
Third: Upon seeing the rather shocking pay disparity between men and women in the games industry, many people asked to see how the male/female breakdown related to years of experience in the industry to see whether the male wage advantage was due to having more male devs with more years of experience than female devs -- the idea being, presumably, that we want to know whether the game industry is paying men more than an equally-experienced woman, or whether the game industry is paying men more because there are more men with 6+ years of experience in the industry than women.
In other words: Is the gender gap due to sexist biases that devalue women devs, or is it due to the relatively scarce number of experienced women devs in the industry?
The real answer, of course, is probably "both" -- but I digress. We compared experience levels to gender and discipline (using only data for U.S.-based salaried devs, mind you -- the salary survey itself uses worldwide data unless otherwise specified), and here's what we found.
Across all disciplines, the men we surveyed are more likely to have more experience. 623 male devs have over six years of industry experience, 426 devs have 3-6 years, and 284 have less than three years. Women were mostly in the 3-6 year range (77), then >6 years (50), then less than three years (46). So, yes, a higher proportion of highly-experienced male devs means we'd expect higher salaries for men than women overall. To me, this seems to reflect what we as an industry already know; it's not a particularly hospitable industry for women (as indicated by the meager gender ratio), meaning they're less likely to stick around than men are.
Production seems to be the most viable long-term career discipline for women. Production had over twice as many women respondents with over six years of experience than any other discipline (19). Interestingly enough, women with three years of experience or less are more often found in art and animation (17). Women devs in the 3-6 year range, meanwhile, fell all across the spectrum; 22 producers, 17 artist/animators, 15 designers, 11 programmers, 10 in biz/legal, 2 in Q/A, and 0 audio (audio and QA comprise our two smallest respondent pools, so no surprise there).
The sample size is small. The respondent pool we're using for this post (U.S.-based salaried devs) has the same gender ratio as the overall salary pool -- roughly 11% women. When we survey a relatively small population (game developers) and then slice that data further and further (only women, salaried, in the US, segregated by discipline and level of experience) the numbers are only going to get smaller and smaller, meaning it's harder to draw very specific trends.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Now, back to work on the May issue! And stay tuned -- we're planning to tackle this topic in more depth in the future.
Patrick Miller
Editor, Game Developer
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If I'm reading the stats correctly and tallying up the participant numbers, around 46% of male devs surveyed have 6+ years of experience, while only 28% of females.
This seems like the real story here - we're not retaining women developers.
On the other hand, with such a small sampling, it's possible that experienced women developers simply didn't take the survey. It would be great to see how these experience ratios compare with previous years' surveys.
As much as we want to say that the video game industry is keeping women out or otherwise undervaluing them, the sad truth is that women have it worse in most other industries. That is, this is a larger societal problem, not just a problem of one particular industry.
You're not really comparing the right numbers.
US industrywide average (men AND women) was $84,337. The $10,000 gap you mention is specifically referring to 2011's gender disparity in programmers; 2012's salary survey lists different numbers for different disciplines, not one number overall. For most disciplines, the pay gap is as bad or worse than the 2012 average (81c on the dollar, according to http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/05/171196714/the-jobs-with-the-big gest-an
d-smallest-pay-gaps-between-men-and-women).
Hearing that women are up to .81 on the dollar is good news. I thought it was around 80% and was a little surprised to see it was .77 on the dollar when I googled it. Either way, my point is not "women don't have it bad in games any more" it was "women still have it bad in general".
I don't have access to the actual data. What did the wage gaps tend to be (understanding that there is a self selection bias)?
Economics here. If the demand for pay is lower from the supplying pool, wouldn't that result in lower wages? Article after article I never see this as a significant consideration in the compensation. Was such a consideration already proved insignificant to the point no one ever brings it up?
Of course I have some confirmation bias, as I've long assumed that the industry would start dealing with these issues more consistently when we had more women working as devs--so I've been expecting statistics to show that.
My explanation for this is that it seems like women leave the industry after a few years. In order for your explanation to be true (it's not that women are leaving, just that greater numbers of women are entering now than they were before), we'd have to see a staggeringly dramatic rise in entry-level women devs over the last few years. Considering the gender ratio in previous salary surveys has pegged the industry at roughly around 10-11%, I think my explanation is more accurate -- though you're correct in that this is simply data that doesn't tell a story on its own.
Also, men are much more likely to ask for a raise.
Stats I'd really like to see are single women's pay vs males pay.
Apparently a lot of the "women get paid X cents in the dollar compared to men" statistics don't take these factors into account. They just compare job title to income for men vs. women.
This may partially be because women are seen as 'overly aggressive' if they ask for raises as compared to men where it's seen as 'taking initiative.'
See: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133599768/ask-for-a-raise-most-women-hesitate
First, speaking as a working mother, being a caregiver doesn't mean you work fewer hours. You may work them at different times-working from 7 AM to 4:30 PM, for example, but you're still working as many hours. Working parents often split caregiving duties (one parent drops off at daycare, the other picks up), so assuming that a woman is a) the primary caregiver and b) working fewer hours is a bad assumption.
Second, working more hours does not mean more work done. We all know people who spend much of their work day on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Some people work well in an office, some people work better at home. Hours spent in an office does not equal actual productive hours does not equal work done.
Finally, "single" is irrelevant these days. Many "single" people have caregiver responsibilities for other family members (including caring for aging parents, for example). They may live as a larger family and choose to remain legally unmarried because of backwards tax laws. They may be single parents.
Since that isn't the case, something is wrong in your statement and since there is two things that can change in the statement, it's either 1. women are not underpaid or 2. they are underpaid but not because of sexism.
/I should mention that I'm Scandinavian, it may vary per culture as well.
Terrible article and sadly not the first I've read on this same survey coming to the same flawed conclusions.
One question. Why are women were paid more in programming even though the numbers still point out that men had more experience?
Is it that they are just in hot demand/ companies trying to satisfy diversity requirements and overpaying for the higher qualified women?
Dear prior posters,
I have to hand out some flattery here: I really enjoy reading these comments!
You all seem to seriously think about the topic and lay out your arguments respectfully. I don't agree with all of you, but usually whenever I read any slightly feminist-themed article, the trolls take over immediately and make any discussion impossible.
That's really different here! Kudos!
It would be nice to have some actual hard data to back either side or neither side of that argument instead of personal anecdotes for a change though.
Now it also raises the argument of do people male or female want to just be perceived as a "nerd" or do they actively participate in the culture or pursue careers in such fields as you listed.
What I think would be some interesting statistics would be male/female comparison in tech fields during the dot-com bubble compared to now. See if it's a sex issue selecting more financially secure careers vs more risky, and what better time period would there be than then?
And even today modern media suggests that tech, games and science is for males, and women have to be interested in fashion, diets, and when it comes to a field of study - art or literature.
If you had grown up with everything around you suggesting that, because of your gender, you are not as good in math, and not good at tech or science, and not good with computers, and games are something for the 'other' gender - then I wonder how that would affect you.
You think women are afraid of a "nerd" stigma? Try again.
Can I just disagree with the whole premise here? I've worked at and assisted in hiring for several places, not to mention having a good number of contacts in the industry in lead positions that have also done hiring. Not that one can rely solely on anecdotal evidence, but I refuse to believe that the greater percentage of the industry is comprised of men with a chip on their shoulders when it comes to paying women.
Very often in the gaming industry what I see is a position gets put out there with no indication of how much the company is going to pay (intentionally), and the interviewee comes in with the figure they would like to get paid. There's a top-line budget for how much the company is willing to pay for said position, but it doesn't mean that if someone asks for less, the company goes "ah, I know you asked for 60k, but we're prepared to pay you up to 70k." If the interviewee gets the position and asks for less, they'll be given less. If the interviewee asks for more than the top-line, either they'll be denied the position, or if their interview was amazing, some negotiation can occur. But nowhere in any of that does anyone I know, myself included, consciously or subconsciously go "You know, this is a woman, she needs to make less."
And as an aside: From a sample size this small, there's no way you can draw a meaningful conclusion on a topic such as this. There are way too many pieces of data missing.
As to why that might be happening... women working fewer hours, generalized sexism of society, specific sexism in games, women getting lesser raises, women leaving the industry, men changing jobs more, etc... we would need to look at a different study.
I've certainly experienced that when hiring a female artist who was then unhappy with her salary even though I didn't negotiate with her and just accepted what she initially wanted.
However while I think that is probably something that applies more to females it certainly applies to some men too.
I certainly don't think it's sexism. An employer would be a fool to discriminate based on anything other than merit.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133599768/ask-for-a-raise-most-women -hesitate
So the problem is, in part, a larger societal issue of how women are seen and/or see themselves.
Does this mean that the education field (and college admissions as well) are inherently hostile to men, because they have a significantly higher percentage of females in them?
"they're (woman) less likely to stick around than men are."
You dont provide anything to support this assertion. Could it instead mean that this industry is attracting more women than it used to?
Besides, as you yourself concludes, the number of repondants isnt even large enough to make any meaningful statistics. 22 females programmer isnt even enough to make an average you can trust with any meaningful degree of statistical confidence.
http://hbr.org/2013/05/ending-the-wage-gap/ar/1
You could draw interesting comparisons to the games industry; if men are more likely to move to a new company, for example, they may get higher salaries because of it.