USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative
After years of stagnancy, women are gaining ground on the charts and at the Grammys.
A report on gender equality in the music industry by Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative — which was supported by Spotify and is the latest in an annual series released by the groups — assessed 12 years and 1,200 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts, looking at artists, songwriters and producers.
The study, Inclusion in the Recording Studio? Gender & Race/Ethnicity of Artists, Songwriters & Producers across 1,100 Popular Songs from 2012 to 2022, is out Tuesday (Jan. 30.)
The study’s key takeaway is that women’s participation in music creation, which has historically lagged, has improved across several metrics.
On the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts, the percentage of women artists reached 35%, a 12-year high. The study attributes this change to the fact that 40.6% of spots on these charts in 2023 were occupied by individual women artists, an increase over 2022 when the number was 34.8%. Improvements were less significant for women-led bands or duos.
The number of women songwriters also increased, from 14.1% in 2022 to 19.5% in 2023. The study notes that this change was due “almost exclusively to the number of women of color credited as songwriters in 2023.” The reports cites 55 women of color receiving a songwriting credit in 2023, a jump from 33 women of color 2022 and 14 in 2012.
Fifty-six percent of songs in 2023 included at least one woman songwriter — an increase from 2022 and the highest percentage in 12 years.
“The changes for songwriters are doubtlessly due to the work of numerous groups working to support women in music,” Dr. Smith says in a statement. “Whether She Is The Music, Spotify Equal, Moving the Needle, Women’s Audio Mission, Be the Change, Keychange, Girls Make Beats, or others, there has been a groundswell of support for women across the last several years. This advocacy and activism is propelling change in the industry. While there is work to be done, these groups are well-positioned to keep fighting for change.”
In the producing realm, fourteen, or 6.5%, of the producers credited in 2023 were women. This surpassed the previous record of 4.9% in 2019. Nearly half, or six, of the women producers in 2023 were women of color. But, over the nine years the study has assessed gender equality in production, 94% of the evaluated songs did not include a single woman producer. Across nine years, there have been 29.8 men to every one woman working as a producer.
The race/ethnicity of artists is also a focus of the report. In 2023, 61% of the artists on the Hot 100 Year-End Charts were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group, while 39% were white. This was a 12-year high and an increase from 2022, when the number was 50.6%, but not significantly greater than the percentage of underrepresented artists in 2020, when the number was 59%.
The study also assessed the six major Grammy categories: record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, best new artist, producer of the year and songwriter of the year.
The study found that nearly a quarter (24%) of nominations across these six categories went to women in 2024 — a jump from 15.5% in 2023. This overall change was reflected in four categories: record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, and best new artist. This year, nominees in these categories include Taylor Swift, Victoria Monét, SZA, Miley Cryus, boygenius, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. In each of these categories, the percentage of women nominees increased significantly from 2023 to 2024 and from the first year the awards were evaluated in 2013.
For the fifth year in a row, no women were nominated for producer of the year.
“Awards like the Grammys show us how women’s contributions to the industry are received,” Dr. Smith says. “The increases in nominations this year are a positive step in recognizing the creative work that women did last year in competitive fields. The Recording Academy has clearly taken inclusion seriously and worked to increase the diversity of its membership, particularly its voting members.”
But, she continues, “There is still too little recognition for women producers and songwriters in those categories, and there are too few women of color nominated for their work. For music industry honors to truly reflect the creative workforce and the audience they serve, there must be a place for women and particularly women of color in these awards.”
Other key findings:
• In 2023, 164 artists appeared on the Hot 100 Billboard Year-End Chart. Of these, 64.6% were men, 34.8% were women, and 0.6% were gender non-binary.
• Across the 12-year sample, women artists were the most likely to work in pop (34.7%) and least likely in alternative (14.4%) and hip-hop (14.9%).
• Across 12 years, Drake had the most credits as a solo artist, appearing 52 times, double that of Justin Bieber, who appears on 25 songs. Nicki Minaj was the woman with the highest number of credits, appearing 25 times, while Ariana Grande followed with 23 songs and Rihanna with 22.
• The percentage of underrepresented women on the charts in 2023 was 65%, with this number the same as 2022 and and almost doubling since 2012, when it was 33.3%. “Put differently,” the study says, “women of color continue to dominate the charts.”
• In terms of genre, across 12 years, women were most likely to write pop (20.1%) and dance/electronic (19.6%) songs, and least likely to write hip-hop and rap (7.5%) and country (9.9%) songs. Even in pop music, where women songwriters most often appear, they were outnumbered by male songwriter by a ratio of 4 to 1.
The University of California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is back with its annual report on inclusion in the recording studio and, consistent with previous years, it found that women have been woefully underrepresented across the recorded music industry — though some gains have been made.
“There is good news for women artists this year,” said Dr. Smith in a release. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — there is still much work to be done before we can say that women have equal opportunity in the music industry.”
Released Tuesday (Jan. 31), the sixth annual report on gender representation in the music industry — sponsored by Spotify and titled “Inclusion in the Recording Studio?” — examined the gender of artists, songwriters and producers across all 1,100 songs included on Billboard’s Hot 100 year-end charts spanning from 2012 to 2022. Additionally, the study assessed every Grammy nominee nominated for record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, best new artist and producer of the year within the same time frame, along with this year’s inaugural songwriter of the year category.
In 2022, women represented only 30% of the 160 artists on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart, while men made up 69.4% and artists who identified as non-binary made up less than 1%. That 30% representation number is slightly better than the 11-year average, which places women at 22.3% of the total.
In terms of race, the report found that half of all artists on the year-end Hot 100 chart in 2022 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. This was a decrease from 2021 when the study found that 57.2% of artists came from those groups. Between 2012 and 2022, 48.1% of all artists across the 1,100-song sample came from those groups.
Women of color fared slightly better last year, with the study noting that 65% of all artists from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups were women — an increase from 55% in 2021.
In terms of songwriters, women represented roughly 14% of songwriting credits on the Hot 100 in both 2022 and 2021. That represents only a slight increase over the full 11-year period when they made up 12.8% on average. Between 2012 and 2022, more than half of songs did not credit a woman songwriter, while 43% had one or more women songwriters. By contrast, less than 1% of all songs were missing male songwriters. Additionally, the 12 male songwriters with the most credits across the 1,100-song sample (Drake led the pack with 49, while Nicki Minaj topped the women songwriters list with 20) were collectively responsible for crafting nearly 25% of them.
Women of color landed more songwriting credits than white women in 2022, though the report suggests “this is not a metric worth celebrating” since the total number of women songwriters of color in 2022 decreased compared to 2021.
The number of women with producer credits in popular music continues to be alarmingly low. In 2022, a mere 3.4% of producers were women across all songs included on the year-end Hot 100 chart. This was almost even with the percentage of women producers represented on all Hot 100 year-end charts since 2012 (excepting 2013-2015, which were not counted) when just 2.8% of songs credited women producers. Of the 50 women credited across the eight-year sample, just 13 — or 26% — were women of color.
The 2022 statistics also show that the Recording Academy’s Women in the Mix Pledge — which asked industry members to commit to working with a woman producer or engineer on a song — had no real impact on the charts. In 2022, only one pledge-taker (Nicki Minaj) worked with a woman producer (Malibu Babie) on a song that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart. Meanwhile, no pledge-takers worked with a woman engineer last year.
“This industry solution has not proven effective,” said Dr. Smith. “Until women and men artists hire women songwriters and producers the numbers will not move. It’s more than just allowing an artist to credit themselves on a song, it’s about identifying talent and hiring women in these roles. That’s the only way that we will see change occur.”
The Grammy Awards, which will hold their 65th annual ceremony Sunday (Feb. 5), also have a large indifference in terms of representation, according to the study. In 2023, 15.2% of nominees across six major categories are women — virtually unchanged from 2022 when the number was 14.1%. Across the 11 years evaluated, 13.9% of nominees in the major categories were women, while 86% were men. In 2023, women were most likely to be nominated for best new artist (50%) and song of the year (33.3%) but represented only a fraction of nominees for record of the year (15.1%) and album of the year (12.2%). On the bright side, in this year’s brand-new songwriter of the year category, women made up 60% of the nominees.
Of the women nominated in the past 11 years across all major categories, 51.5% were white while 48.5% were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. But in 2023, women of color received more nominations in key categories than white women did. According to the report, 61.5% of the women nominated this year were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, compared to 38.5% who were white.
In the report, a simple solution is proposed to help lessen the inequities: hire women. “The process of creating a song is collaborative, and until women are involved in the process, we will continue to see the numbers lag,” it reads.
Pipeline programs like She Is The Music, the EQL program, and Women’s Audio Mission are also touted as ways to support inclusion efforts. “Women are stereotyped — in terms of the types of songs and genres they can create, and into the roles they can play — they are sexualized, and their talents and experience are discounted. The pipeline programs noted above are designed to address these barriers, but there is more to do. As stated earlier, women must be hired, and they require allies and champions — men and women — throughout the industry who will help demolish barriers.”
To read further findings from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, head here.
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