Men and women held equal shares of jobs at public media stations last year, according to newly released data by CPB, and minorities reached a 10-year high in the proportion of jobs held in the system.
Data added to CPB’s website in recent weeks covers public media stations that receive Community Service Grants. According to the data, women have gained larger shares of jobs in the categories of “officials,” “managers,” “professionals” and “technicians” but have seen their share of jobs decline in a catchall “other” category.
Meanwhile, race and ethnicity data shows that minorities accounted for 24.7% of employees at CSG-qualified stations last year. Among minorities, Hispanic employees saw a 0.6% increase in their share of jobs from 2011–20, while the percentage of Asian employees grew by 0.7%. The percentage of African American employees declined by 0.4%, and the percentage of white employees fell by 3.1%. Native American employment remained level.
In most cases, minorities were increasingly represented as officials, managers, professionals and technicians at stations. The exceptions were decreases in percentages of Native American and Asian managers. The percentage of Native American managers fell from 1.7% in 2016 to 1.2% in 2020. During the same period, the percentage of Asian managers decreased by 0.1%.
2020 was the only year in which CPB accounted for employees who identified as being of two or more races. A total of 425 employees, or 2.2%, identified as such and were included in the minority totals.
“Over the last five years there has been incremental growth across all public media job categories in terms of race and ethnicity,” reads a note accompanying race and ethnicity data by job category. “Finding ways to promote change in the public media system and make public media more accessible on many levels to a diverse group of Americans is a high priority.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that prior to 2020, men and women at public media stations last held an equal percentage of jobs in 2005 and 2006. That applies to CPB employees, not station employees.
I find this headline to be misleading. Are these minor increases statistically significant? I would say no. Plus Hispanic data went down slightly. With diversity and diversity reporting in the spotlight right now, I would encourage Current to rewrite the headline to be more accurate.
Ok even if every race got a certain percentage of everything it would just be even more unequal that would mean more of some races would get more than others because some races have smaller numbers of people and require less resources than another larger one would. You can’t give 1,000 fish to a village of 100, 1,000 and 1,000,000 and get the same results every one has different requirements.
Hi Mike, we have revised the headline. Thanks for your comment.