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These Are The Best American Cities For Women In Tech

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The tech industry is one of the most rapidly growing in the United States and it is actually a field where the U.S. is still a world leader. The unfortunate thing is that this industry is still a “boys’ club” where women are in great minority, holding under 25 percent of all jobs and, on average, making 15 percent less than their male colleagues.

In fact, when compared to 2015, this year women are holding an even smaller portion of computer and mathematical occupation jobs. While 50,000 women got jobs in these fields over the course of the last 12 months, so did 223,000 men, meaning that the ratio has gone even worse for women.

Large tech hubs like San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle are among the worst, where the percentage of female tech employees rarely goes over 25 percent. Believe it or not, the largest and most popular tech U.S. companies are even worse than this.

For example, women hold only 11 percent of technical positions at Amazon. At Twitter, this percentage is at 13. At Microsoft, women hold only 16.9 percent of technical positions, at Facebook 16 and at Google 18. Apple is much better with 22 percent. That was sarcasm, in case you missed it.

Luckily, there are still some cities and areas in the U.S. where the situation is somewhat better and where women hold a larger percentage of technical, mathematical and IT jobs. SmartAsset decided to take a look at which these are and they have come up with a list of Top 15 U.S. Cities for Women in Tech in 2016.

They relied on the U.S. Census Bureau data and considered 58 largest cities in the United States. They calculated the percentage of women in the tech workforce, the gender pay gap, income after housing costs (very important for putting things into perspective) and three-year tech employment growth (this one was not gender-sensitive). In the end, they also gave index scores to each of the 58 cities in order to rank them.

shutterstock_267394775The best 2016 city for women in tech in the U.S. is Washington, D.C. where women make 99.3 percent of what men do in the field (there is effectively no gender pay gap) and where more than 40 percent of tech jobs are filled by women, which is much better than the national average of 26 percent. The city also boasts a three-year tech employment growth of 16 percent. Washington also does pretty well when it comes to income left after covering housing costs which is at $59,704.

The second best city on their list is Kansas City, Missouri where women also make as much as men and where they make up for 33.6 percent of all tech jobs. The amount of income that is left after covering housing costs is also not bad, at just over $57,000. The biggest problem Kansas City faces is that the tech employment has shrunk over the last three years, albeit by only 3 percent. Still, it is one of the rare cities where the growth is in the negative.

Detroit, Michigan is the third best city for women in technology. In Detroit, women actually make more than men, earning 22.8 percent more than men, probably due to the fact they fill senior positions. Quicken Loans, one of American best companies where company culture and diversity are in question, is probably most responsible for the fact that women make up for over 44 percent of all tech jobs, which is best in the country. Motor City has also seen a 32 percent here-year growth in tech employment. Unfortunately, the city also boasts some of the lowest wages in tech, where women in tech are left with only $42,569 after housing costs, despite the low housing costs in Detroit.

Baltimore, Maryland and Indianapolis, Indiana round off the top 5, despite a relatively minor growth of 7 percent in tech employment. Still, both these cities flaunt an above-average percentage of women in tech and relatively low gender pay gap (none for Indianapolis, 90 percent for Baltimore).

Other cities that made it to top 15 include Chandler, Arizona; New York, New York; New Orleans, Louisiana; Denver, Colorado; Fremont, California(the only Californian city in top 15); St. Paul, Minnesota; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin andPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania.

In case you were wondering which of the cities ranked in the bottom 5, these were Portland, Oregon as the worst, followed by Madison, Wisconsin;Raleigh North Carolina; Austin, Texas and Los Angeles, California.

You can check out the full list here.

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