Demographics
Gender
58% of respondents identify as men, 40% as women, 1% as non-binary / genderqueer, 1% preferred not to answer, and 1% identified as other. These proportions are consistent with results from 2021, confirming a higher proportion of men against women in data journalism. Although it is too small to be deemed significant, we have seen a 1 percentage-point difference in favour of women when comparing the data with last year’s proportions.
Age
Over 60% of the industry is younger than 44 years of age, of which the largest group (30%) is aged between 35-44. Compared to 2021, this year the overall distribution increases in the centre and decreases at the extremities.
Females tend to be younger than men (39% are under 34 years of age). The same applies to the pool of non-binary and genderqueer respondents (38% are under 34 years of age). The most numerous male age group is instead between 35-44 (31% of all men).
Country of work
The United States has the highest share of people in data journalism (12%). It is followed by the United Kingdom (7%), Italy (6%), Germany (5%), Spain, India, and Nigeria (4% each). This marks a slight difference from last year, as the top five is no longer made of only Western countries. Again, Brazil has the highest response rate for a Latin American country (2%), followed by Argentina (1%). In Africa, the countries with the highest number of respondents include Kenya and Egypt (2% respectively).
Among countries with a minimum of 15 respondents, all Asian and African countries, as well as France, have shares of men that are higher than the overall data set proportions. On the other hand, in Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Mexico, and the Netherlands more than half of respondents are women. Australia tops the ranking for non-binary / genderqueer people (7% of country respondents), followed by Germany, Canada, and the UK (3% each).
Education
Master’s degrees are the most common type of education completed by people in data journalism (47%). Non-binary / genderqueer respondents show the highest share of people with doctoral degrees (19%), while women tend to be the highest educated, with 95% having a university degree (against 89% in the overall data set).
Regardless of the type of degree, Arts and Humanities are by far the largest disciplines in which data journalists specialise. Doctoral degrees have a higher share of Social Sciences (31%) and Natural Sciences (7%) graduates, while more Bachelor’s are pursued in Business, Finance, or Law (7%). On the other hand, Professional Degrees are very rarely pursued in the Social Sciences (6%) and otherwise show a very high proportion of Formal Sciences (18%).