Women game developers getting paid less than men in these US states: Report
The recent document brought to the publication by DesignRush (a web design company), shows stark disparities in pay between male and female game developers across the country.
The data, which was actually pulled out from the U.S. Census Bureau, highlights a troubling trend of gender-based income inequality within the gaming industry.
The report reveals that (on a national scale), women in game development earn only 84.2% of what males are actually having. This discrepancy clearly says that women effectively work without pay for 41 days out of the year.
The date marking this transition into unpaid labour falls on November 20th 2024, but it occurs even sooner in states with greater wage gaps.
Here are the 10 states with the biggest pay disparity for female game developers:
State Women game developer’s earnings as proportion of men’s Pay gap as unpaid working days 2024 date when women in computing start working for free
Alaska 60.6% 103 September 19
Delaware 66.5% 88 October 4
North Dakota 66.3% 88 October 4
Mississippi 72.4% 72 October 20
Arkansas 73.2% 70 October 22
North Carolina 75.0% 66 October 26
Nebraska 75.9% 63 October 29
Utah 76.2% 62 October 30
Kansas 78.1% 57 November 4
California 79.5% 54 November 7
Alaska leads with 60.6% wage disparity, followed by Delaware and North Dakota
As you can see at the number one position for the largest pay disparity, Alaska reports female game developers have a minimum wage of 60.6%, plus male game developers. That means, Alaskan women in such a field will work for free during the rest of the year, which is 31 1/2% of the year, starting with September 19th.
Second place shared by North Dakota and Delaware with women earning 66.3% against men’s income. Hence, counting the 88 days from 4 October to close the pay gap shows that women still have some work to do.
Mississippi is approximately two months behind, while Arkansas is three months from their discontinuation of the unpaid period by females who are self-employed. However, the Motorman state also has the highest pay gap, where women earn 99.1% of men’s salaries, which is equivalent to only one day of unpaid work on December 29th.
On December 21th in Idaho and Connecticut women’s wages become worth 3.8% and 94.3% of men’s income, respectively, as women start working for free from this moment due to lowly earned salaries in their states compared to men.
Although, the fact that there are gaps of such extent is alarming, particularly when we are discussing the lack of tech labour that remains a huge problem among over the half of global organizations.
‘Discrimination of any kind is unethical and should not be tolerated’
Gianluca Ferruggia, General Manager at DesignRush, reflects on the situation: “While skill gaps can occur for a variety of reasons, we’ve definitely seen a significant one emerge in the tech industry due to difficulty attracting and retaining qualified workers – especially in a competitive field like game development.”
“Last year saw widespread layoffs across the tech sector, with reportedly more than three million workers being affected by this mass workforce reduction. Yet most of these organizations will need to retain their current talent and attract new skilled workers – and if they have difficulty doing so, they need to evaluate why that may be.”
“Discrimination of any kind is unethical and should not be tolerated, including gender disparity. Not providing equal opportunities for female developers to advance their careers or get compensated equally reflects poorly on your ability to manage, maintain, and satisfy your current workforce and needs rectifying as a priority,” she continued.
The layoffs that swept through the tech sector last year, affecting over three million workers, have only exacerbated the issue.
