When looking at pay disparity, it is well-reported nationally that cisgender straight white men earn more than their counterparts across gender and racial/ethnic identities. We therefore did analysis of this majority against all other groups, such as “Men vs. Non-Men” and “White vs. Non-white.” (Read more about why we did this in our methodology.)
In almost all cases other than gender identity, the datasets we’re dealing with are very imbalanced: straight responses (219) represent over four times the number of other identities (53), likewise with white responses (208) versus other identities (64). It means that our medians are more susceptible to variation, and we’ve removed some categories with highly imbalanced datasets. In particular, while some findings here show no disparity or a median above the majority group, this does not in any way negate the experiences of individuals. Privilege is intersectional and manifests in many ways that are not represented by the questions we’ve asked.
From the lens of compensation, these findings are meant to help us to focus and hone our efforts towards the most critical problems.
(Note that we did not see any major gaps in matters of sexuality, age, and education-level. See our methodology for details around what we didn’t include as well as a list of all the questions we asked.)
Nationally, the gender pay gap between men and women in relevant fields (Arts & Design-related and Computer-related) is 13-15%. What does that look like for Philly?
From our data, across all roles, men earned 17.1% more than other gender identities. But as you’ll see, this varies greatly by role and is brought down considerably by UX Designer or Researcher, which represents the only job category where men make less than other gender identities.
| Company size | Men | Non-men | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-10 people | Not enough data | ||
| 11-50 people | $88,000 | $70,000 | 25.7% |
| 51-249 people | $95,000 | $80,900 | 17.4% |
| 250+ people | $107,800 | $91,000 | 18.5% |
| Company type | Men | Non-men | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | $91,600 | $81,000 | 13.1% |
| In-house | $102,000 | $82,400 | 23.8% |
| Seniority Level | Men | Non-men | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | $47,800 | $49,000 | -2.5% |
| Intermediate | $75,000 | $75,100 | -0.1% |
| Senior | $100,000 | $95,700 | 4.5% |
| Lead | $135,000 | $117,700 | 14.7% |
When we looked at disparities betweed racial identities, we saw that white respondents had a higher median pay by 6.8%. However, the analyses we're able to perform are limited by a small sample size; in total, only 64 survey participants identified as non-white.
We noted a particular compensation gap that is worth paying attention to: Women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary respondents of color showed a median compensation of $77,800, a 6% gap with their white peers and 22% gap behind white men. This aligns with national trends and is the clearest, largest gap we saw in this census.
| Seniority Level | White | Non-white | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | $48,500 | $48,800 | -0.6% |
| Intermediate | $73,000 | $78,300 | -7.3% |
| Senior | $100,000 | $95,000 | 5.4% |
| Lead | $125,600 | $133,000 | -6.0% |
| Company type | White | Non-white | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency | $85,000 | $82,200 | 3.4% |
| In-house | $95,000 | $84,000 | 13.1% |