Washington, D.C. ranks number one among the top 15 best cities for women in tech in 2019, according to the personal finance website SmartAsset’s fifth annual study on the subject.
The study found that over the last few years, Washington, D.C. has been a great landing spot for women in tech. “The pay gap for women in tech here is small. On average, women in the tech workforce here are paid 95 percent of what men are,” the study notes, adding that the proportion of women who work in tech make up nearly 39 percent of the workforce, which is the second-highest rate.
This year Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Maryland; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania continued to be three of the best cities for women in tech, while Houston, Texas and Arlington, Virginia, unlike in the previous year, managed to make it to the top five spots.
SmartAsset looked at four factors in order to produce the ranking for each city. These included data on the gender pay gap for women in tech, income after housing for women, the percentage of tech workforce comprising women, and tech employment growth.
SmartAsset analyzed data on cities that have a minimum population of 200,000 to identify the best cities for women in tech. Any city that lacked statistically reliable data was taken out of the data set, and in the end, it came down to 58 cities that were ranked in the study.
Although tech jobs are typically well-paying and offer long-term growth, women face difficulties in getting these jobs. Women make 84 percent of what men in the tech world earn and have less opportunity to save even after finding these jobs, according to the Census Bureau data.
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