Women in book publishing are in more of the jobs than ever but occupy fewer than half the managerial positions.
Catching up with PW's Andrew Albanese
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In its annual Salary Survey of the industry, Publishers Weekly finds that while women have continued to increase their numerical dominance in the publishing workforce, they suffer from an imbalance in executive positions and in pay.
“In the 2016 survey, women accounted for 80% of the publishing workforce, up from 74% the previous year. For the last several years, PW has found that women are joining the industry at a much faster rate than men. Indeed, in 2016, 85% of respondents with under three years’ experience in publishing were women,” reports Andrew Albanese, PW senior writer.
The dominance of women was especially profound on the editorial side with 89% of all editorial jobs held by women, followed by 82% of sales and marketing positions.
“Which brings us to the troubling data point – management. Women’s share of jobs in that category dropped from 54% in 2015 to 49%. In other words, women in book publishing are taking more and more jobs – indeed, as much as 8 out of 10 publishing jobs—but they now occupy fewer than half the managerial positions,” Albanese notes.
In addition, PW found the median salary for men in management was $127,000—about $10,000 higher than the median for women. Men also reported higher salaries than women in sales and marketing and operations and production. Across all job functions, the median salary for men was $93,000 and $65,000 for women.
“It’s no secret that publishing is not a high-paying field, and it never has been,” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “Salary was listed as a top work-related frustration among respondents— and especially by women, with 60% of respondents citing low pay as a major reason for their frustration at work.”
Every Friday, CCC’s “Beyond the Book” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.