The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has been publishing its reports on women in music for several years now, focusing on the representation of women artists, songwriters and producers in the year-end Billboard Hot 100 charts. Last year’s study saw positive results in terms of growth. The headline this year is ‘Women in music hold on to gains, but have more room to grow’.
Women accounted for 37.7% of artists in the year-end Hot 100 chart, up from 35% in 2023. Meanwhile the percentage of women songwriters fell from 19.5% to 18.9%, and for producers it fell from 6.5% to 5.9%. The report also examined race and ethnicity of artists, finding that “the percentage of underrepresented artists in 2024 (44.6%) fell significantly from 2023 (61%)” – but that the 2024 stat was still “on par with the proportion of the U.S. population that is underrepresented”.
In all cases, strong progress has been made since 2012, but author Stacy L. Smith warned the music industry off complacency. “The music industry is a mirror to the film industry — there is a lot of fanfare about supporting women, but little actual change among the most popular songs,” she said. “Until the people in the executive ranks and A&R roles take seriously the lack of women in the industry, we will continue to see little change.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
