Statistics About Women and Gender Minorities in the Music Industry

This is a compilation over the past few years about women and non-binary musicians and producers in the industry.

22.4% of artists attached to the top 600 songs over the past 6 years were female.

— USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative

Only 23.2% of all Spotify listeners stream music from female or mixed-gender artists. 44% of listeners on Spotify identify themselves as women. Women stream 32.3% from female or mixed-gender artists and men stream only 18.1% from female or mixed-gender artists. When we put all genders of Spotify’s listeners’ statistics together – at least the ones that have given that information – we find that when listeners choose their own music, they listen to 21.8% music from female artists.

— Sonosuite.com

In an editorial about their research in the Conversation, the study’s authors point out representation for women and queer artists is already “tremendously low.”…Researchers also noted in the article that less than 20% of registered songwriters and composers are women, while 98% of music performed by prominent orchestras is composed by men.

— NY Post

No woman or non-binary person has ever won the US Grammy award for best producer (non-classical).

— Women’s Audio Mission

Across 300 songs, only 2 tracks (.01%) had women of color producers.

— USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative

Women held only 2% of all producing positions across the 2020 Billboard Hot 100 songs, and only 5% of the songs in a sample spanning nine years of popular music had a woman producer.

— Women’s Audio Mission