Stay on top of measuring diversity in your workplace with these statistics.
Diversity and inclusion in the workplace are among the most important topics facing HR, people teams and recruiting professionals.
Knowing a wide range of statistics related to workplace diversity and inclusion might help you and your team better understand the complex nature of the topics. Using this knowledge, you can work toward building a diverse and inclusive workforce that will ultimately yield higher revenue and boost employee performance.
People who identify as white and non-Hispanic in the United States (the current largest U.S. racial population) declined in numbers for the first time on record in 2020, falling at 57.8 percent of the country’s population for that year. This population decreased from 63.7 percent in 2010.
Non-Hispanic white people are no longer projected to account for the majority of Americans by 2045, making the U.S. more racially and ethnically pluralistic by this time.
One in three Americans is projected to belong to a race other than white by 2060, with the fastest-growing U.S. racial or ethnic group being those who are two or more races.
Generation Z is the most racially diverse U.S. generation, with approximately 48 percent identifying as non-white.
As of 2015, Census data shows that around 56 percent of Millennials are white, whereas Baby Boomers are 75 percent white. Additionally, there are now more Millennials than Baby Boomers in the U.S. population today, as 18 to 44-year-olds make up the largest age bracket in the United States.
DEI experts offer solutions to create a radically inclusive workplace.
As of February 2024, the average U.S. unemployment rate is 3.9 percent. Breaking it down based on race, the unemployment rates for people who are Black (5.6 percent) and Hispanic or Latine (5 percent) remain higher than those who are white (3.4 percent) and Asian (3.4 percent).
In 2023, 7.2 percent of people with a disability in the U.S. were unemployed. Across all age groups, people with disabilities are less likely to be employed than people without disabilities.
In 2022, 3.4 percent of foreign-born U.S. workers were unemployed — down from 5.6 percent in 2021 , but up from 3.1 percent in 2019. For reference, 18.1 percent of the U.S. workforce is foreign-born as of 2022.
Those in the U.S. who are 25 and older and hold no high school diploma experienced an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent in February 2024 — the highest rate in comparison to those with a high school diploma or more education. Within the same age and education group, the highest unemployment rate was found amongst Black people at 9.3 percent.
In 2022, 19.9 percent of families had no members employed. Additionally, that percentage goes up to 20 percent for Black families and 20.6 percent for white families.
24.5 percent of heterosexual married-couple families live on a single income, slightly less than the 25.3 percent in 2021.
As of 2022, 78.5 percent of heterosexual married-couple families supported by women have an employed member. That falls short of the 84.8 percent of heterosexual married-couple families supported by men that have an employed member.
As of February 2023, women 16 years and over make up 55.4 percent of all U.S. employees, but there’s still a long way to go to make it a more equitable environment and break the glass ceiling.
The gender pay gap persists as of 2023, as the median weekly earnings of full-time working women equaled 83.6 percent of the median weekly earnings by full-time working men.
Women are twice as likely as men to be mistaken for someone more junior and 1.5 times as likely to have their judgment questioned. Women also filed over 78 percent of sexual harassment charges received by the U.S. EEOC between 2018 and 2021.
As of January 2023, women make up 10.6 percent of the CEO workforce at Fortune 500 companies. This led the amount of women CEOs in this area to total 53, which is the highest it’s ever been.
Only 87 women, and 73 women of color, are promoted for every 100 men promoted to manager. As a result, men significantly outnumber women in managerial positions.
Women ask for pay raises almost just as often as men at similar positions (at 11 percent for both) — but women receive them about 7 percent less often than men do.
Only one in four C-suite or senior leadership roles are held by women. (That’s why some companies are focused on increasing the amount of women in tech leadership positions.)
Women of color make up just one in 16 C-suite leaders. In nearly every category, women of color are the most underrepresented population in corporate America, compared to white men, white women and men of color.
Additionally, the same report found that between entry-level and the C-suite, the representation of women of color drops off by 12 percentage points.
Women are getting higher education degrees more often than men, making them more competitive candidates in the workforce compared to their counterparts who do not have a degree.
In a 2022 report, McKinsey found that women in senior management were twice as likely as men in similar roles to spend “substantial time” on DEI work falling outside their normal job responsibilities, such as supporting employee resource groups.
76.5 percent of the U.S. workforce is made up of white people. Hispanic or Latine people make up 18.8 percent of the workforce, Black people make up 12.8 percent of the workforce and Asian people make up 6.9 percent of the workforce, as of 2023.
As of 2024, eight Fortune 500 companies have a chief executive officer who is Black.
About 40 percent of Black workers report experiencing discrimination at some point in hiring, pay or promotions due to their race or ethnicity. This compares to 25 percent of Asian workers and 20 percent of Hispanic or Latine workers who report discrimination.
Researchers found that job candidates who have “distinctively Black names” have a lower probability of hearing back from companies they applied to in comparison to candidates with “distinctively white names”.
Of the Fortune 500 companies, 154 released DEI reports in 2023, up from 79 in 2022. Still, this is less than one-third of all Fortune 500 companies, and many companies failed to collect data on open positions being filled by women and people of color, employees with disabilities and other categories.
Companies with highly diverse teams noticed a significant increase in cash flow — to the tune of 2.5 times per employee.
Companies in the top quartile for women representation on executive teams are 18 percent more likely to financially outperform competitors. Meanwhile, companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity on executive teams are 27 percent more likely to outperform competitors, and companies in the top quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity on executive teams are 9 percent more likely to outperform competitors.
Companies that score in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive boards are 27 percent more likely to financially outperform those in the bottom quartile. And companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity on their executive boards are 13 percent more likely to outperform their peers in the bottom quartile.
Through 2022, 75 percent of organizations having diverse and inclusive decision-making teams were projected to exceed their financial targets by Gartner.
Employees who feel included within their organizations are about three times more likely than other peers to feel excited by and committed to organization missions, according to McKinsey.
The most gender-diverse companies see a 48 percent difference in outperformance compared to the least gender-diverse companies.
Gender-diverse companies that are in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams are 25 percent more likely than fourth-quartile companies to have above-average profitability.
If the global workforce became equally gender-diverse by 2030, global GDP could increase by $13 trillion, according to McKinsey.
Top-quartile companies for racial and ethnic diversity are 36 percent more likely to outperform fourth-quartile companies. The likelihood for outperformance also increases higher for diversity in ethnicity than diversity in gender.
About 60 percent of respondents in a 2021 Forrester survey claimed the success of their sales teams is tied to the diversity of their teams. In fact, 88 percent of the top sales organizations have racially or ethnically diverse sales teams.
Over 90 percent of U.S. workers have experienced some form of discrimination in the workplace, based on race, gender, disability status, age and other factors.
Over 20 percent of U.S. workers experienced harassment at work in 2023. It’s no surprise then that 57 percent of workers have suffered from negative impacts of work-related stress, and 23 percent felt the desire to quit their jobs.
Over 40 percent of U.S. employees consider whether a company is diverse and inclusive to all types of people to be an important factor when weighing a job offer.
According to a CNBC survey, 80 percent of respondents said they want to work for a company that values diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
About 56 percent of workers view investing in DEI at work positively, and over 60 percent of workers say it’s at least somewhat important for them to work in a place with people of different races and ethnicities.
U.S. employees are more than four times more likely to work at a company that publicly supports and commits to expanding and protecting LGBTQ+ rights.
In a McKinsey survey, 44 percent of women respondents said they have decided against pursuing or accepting a job position due to the belief that the organization wouldn’t be inclusive.
According to a Workday survey, 78 percent of global business leaders claim DEI has become more important over the course of 2023, and 85 percent assert having budgets for DEI initiatives.
While diversity and inclusion seem to consistently be important topics to employees at each seniority level, 44 percent of organizations in a Traliant report say their executive team “owns” their DEI strategy.
DEI experts offer solutions to create a radically inclusive workplace.
46 Diversity in the Workplace Statistics to Know – Built In
