Philadelphia ranks as ninth best city for women in tech, falling six places from last year

Philadelphia ranked as the ninth-best American city for women in tech in 2020, a decrease from last year's third-place ranking due to a widening gender pay gap. 

According to the SmartAsset study, Philadelphia's decreased ranking can be partly attributed to a growing gender pay gap in the city. Philadelphia women in tech are currently making 91% of what their male counterparts make, compared to 97% in 2019. 

The gender pay gap is one of four main criteria SmartAsset uses to produce their rankings, according to Technical.ly. The other three factors are the number of tech jobs filled by female-identifying workers, tech growth in the region, and earnings after housing. According to SmartAsset, the study only considers cities with more than 200,000 residents as of 2018.

SmartAsset has conducted this ranking since 2015 to analyze the gender pay gap in mathematical and computational professions. Philadelphia ranked ninth in 2015, 15th in 2016, 10th in 2017, fourth in 2018, and third in 2019.

This year, Baltimore, Md., Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Va. occupied the top three spots. 

The study found that a larger city is not necessarily better for women in tech, according to SmartAsset. New York City and Los Angeles, Ca. ranked twenty-seventh and forty-seventh, respectively. It also concluded that the national gender pay gap has widened since 2015, SmartAsset reported.

In Philadelphia, women fill 29.3% of tech jobs, according to SmartAsset. In the last four years, tech employment has grown by 22% and a woman's average income after housing costs is $50,804.

Despite Philadelphia's lower ranking, AJ Smith, vice president of financial education at SmartAsset, told Technical.ly that the study indicates that Philadelphia still outperforms nationally, with 3% more women working in tech in the city than the nationwide average.

Smith also told Technical.ly that "there’s been a small but decreasing trend of the percentage of women in tech compared to men" over the past few years.