University of Massachusetts Study Examines Gender Diversity in Silicon Valley Firms

A new report from the Center for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst finds that White and Asian men continue to dominate the workforces of large Silicon Valley companies. The authors of the study used data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to calculate executive, managerial, and professional employment data by race and gender for 177 leading Silicon Valley tech firms, comparing them to 1,277 smaller tech firms.

The data showed that 70 percent of total managerial and tech professionals in the large Silicon Valley Tech firms are men. Men hold 79 percent of all executive positions. The authors did find 12 firms where women made up a majority of the workforce.

The authors note that “the higher we go in these firms the more numerous men tend to be. At the same time, there are firms that are more than 50 percent women, even among executives. Conversely, there are firms in which all executives are men, and many where more than 90 percent of managers and professionals are men. Some firms are clearly better and others worse at hiring and retaining women.”

“These firms already know how to develop innovative products, compete in dynamic global markets, hire in competitive labor markets and are rapidly transforming our world,” the authors state. “It’s difficult to come up with a plausible reason why many cannot manage diversity.”

The full report, Is Silicon Valley Tech Diversity Possible Now?, may be downloaded by clicking here.