University Report Finds a Huge Gender Gap in Communications Industry Employment

A new study led by researchers at the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University in Miami has found a huge gender gap in employment in media-related firms. The study examined the status of women in broadcast news, newspapers, magazines, online and digital media, public relations, and advertising.

Among the report’s findings:

• Women journalists’ salaries are 83 percent of what men earn, almost the same as a quarter century ago.
• At the television networks, women cover 37 percent of the assigned news at NBC, 33 percent at ABC, and 28 percent at CBS.
• Women hold only 23 percent of leadership positions in journalism and media organizations.

Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver, dean emeritus and professor at FIU’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said that “women have outnumbered men in enrollments in college media programs across the U.S. since 1977, but their progress into leadership has not kept pace. The startling fact is that in the past decade media have largely ignored the very people who are their largest audience and buying public: women.”

Dr. Kopenhaver has been on the faculty at Florida International University since 1973. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and an educational doctorate from Nova Southeastern University.