Number of women journalists declining

NCTJ report suggests women in journalism may have decreased

The NCTJ Diversity in Journalism report suggests the proportion of women in journalism has decreased. It has also identified multiple areas where there is an underrepresentation of  different demographic group, in particular working-class people.

Notably though, analysis of the proportion of LGBTQ journalists suggests the group may be better represented in the news industry than it is among the general population.

The report’s figures draw on the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is filled out by 60,000 households in the UK each quarter.

It should also be noted the author, Mark Spilsbury, prefaced the launch by saying some of the sample on which the report’s figures are based are relatively small.

The LFS figures suggest that 89% of journalists identify as heterosexual – versus 96% of the general population. Questions about sexuality in the survey were optional and 6% of respondents did not fill it out.

Only 41% of journalists in the LFS figures for 2022 were women, a 12 percentage point drop on 2020 when they briefly outnumbered men where there was 47% men and 53% of women. This suggests that 2022 had the worst figures for journalism gender equality during the entire time covered by the report.

There has also been an increase in the proportion with a disability, from 15 per cent in 2018, to 16 per cent in 2020, 19 per cent in 2021 and 22 per cent in 2022. This reflects changes across the economy, where we have seen (i) an increase in the percentage willing to declare a health issue/disability) but also (ii) an increase in the proportion of those with a health issue/ disability being able to find work. Covid has played a part in this.

Representation of people of colour is largely static on last year. White journalists made up 88% of the total group in the 2023 figures, a slight increase on 87% last year but a decrease on 2016 (90%) and 2018 (94%).