By Tarika Barrett and Meredith Harper
STEM jobs are a bright spot in the economy—expected to grow three times faster than non-STEM jobs by 2033—but these careers are not within reach for everyone. Black women are underrepresented and underpaid in the STEM workforce, which is a missed opportunity for our country and for innovation at a time when we face more challenges than ever in the technology industry.
Black workers represented just 9% of the STEM workforce in 2021, according to the National Science Foundation, and a Pew Research Center study found that Black women in STEM typically earn lower median incomes compared to their white and Asian peers. These challenges are particularly acute in the cybersecurity and IT fields, where we see both historical underrepresentation of women and people of color and a global talent shortage. A joint Girls Who Code and Accenture study also revealed that 50% of women end up leaving the tech workforce by the age of 35.
The solution is not only to ensure more Black women and girls can compete and earn STEM roles, but also to create equitable working environments and enable personal growth and leadership development.Here are five ways business leaders can start to close the gap:
Cultivate an inclusive culture
We must foster work environments that encourage candor, belonging and openness where Black women feel confident showing up as their authentic selves. This starts by creating safe spaces for Black women to discuss the challenges they are facing in STEM fields and having honest conversations about the impact of stereotypes and bias on their careers.
We encourage companies to look deeply at their own practices and what they might be doing to alienate women and people of color, or what they are doing to prevent them from being hired in the first place. Companies also need to provide more opportunities for Black women, especially those in their early careers, to engage directly with senior executives and ensure their voices are heard through regular meetings and listening sessions.
Provide sponsorship and mentorship
Sponsorship and mentorship are critical mechanisms for fostering personal and professional development. Having a senior-level sponsor—an experienced industry veteran and advocate at the highest levels of an organization—is especially important for elevating more high-performing Black women into leadership positions across STEM fields. We’ve seen how supportive champions and advocates have helped shape our own career paths.
Our recent discussion at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. underscored how having a community of people who affirm and invest in your development is essential to empower Black women in STEM and grow the pipeline.
Seeing physical representations of ourselves in our sponsors and mentors make the possibilities of what we can achieve much more tangible. Now, as leaders, we have the opportunity to sponsor and mentor other Black women and girls by sharing what we’ve learned and helping them build their own pathways to STEM leadership. We must all foster these relationships within our teams and organizations.
Encourage continuous learning and skills training
Continuous learning and training opportunities will help put more Black women and girls on the path to gain skills needed for STEM jobs of the future. This focus is central to the Girls Who Code movement, which has already taught computer science skills to more than 670,000 students—and more than half come from historically underrepresented groups.
In the workplace, expanding access to training can take many forms. Businesses can offer employees tuition reimbursement benefits for technology certification programs in areas like cybersecurity and cloud computing. Companies can also establish on-the-job tech apprenticeship programs to prepare people with non-traditional backgrounds, including military veterans, for fast-growing AI and cybersecurity roles.
As leaders, we need to actively encourage Black women and other underrepresented talent in STEM fields to take advantage of available training opportunities and create new opportunities where there are gaps.
Prioritize pay equity
Black women in the workforce continue to face persistent wage disparity. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Black women earned about 69 cents for every dollar White men earned in 2022—a gap that compounds over the course of a career and perpetuates economic disparities.
All employers should be working toward 100% pay equity and can start by reviewing pay for employees globally, taking into consideration variables that affect salary like job level, geography, business function, and experience. Businesses can also bring in independent third parties to help analyze pay equity for all employees on an annual basis in support of this objective.
Invest in the long-term talent pipeline
One of the greatest opportunities we have in the business community is looking to the future and finding ways to support the next generation of talent—helping more Black women and girls participate and thrive in the STEM workforce.
As an example, Synchrony and Girls Who Code teamed up on a summer program that connected 400 high school students with STEM skills building opportunities in areas like cybersecurity, AI, and game design. Synchrony has also started building a talent pipeline through the Girls Who Code alumni program, helping connect participants with STEM jobs.
Looking at the impact of AI on the workforce and the next wave of tech advancements in areas like quantum computing, companies need to plan for talent development over a longer time horizon and put inclusivity at the center of those efforts.
We need foundational changes so more Black women and girls have equitable opportunities to compete and succeed in our nation’s STEM workforce. We call on business leaders to advance at least one of these five actions to help close the gap for Black women in STEM. We all have a role to play.
Tarika Barrett, PhD is the CEO of Girls Who Code, and Meredith Harper is the chief information security officer at Synchrony.