Motivation & Previous Studies
As a Black woman currently earning a graduate degree, I’ve often wondered why academic achievement hasn’t always translated into access or advancement, especially for women who look like me. Before I started grad school, I came across research showing that highly educated Black women were underrepresented in academic leadership roles. That sparked my curiosity. Was it just academia? Or does this show up in other industries too?
Last year, I conducted a statistical analysis that confirmed what I had suspected—there is a measurable, statistically significant disparity in leadership representation and income for Black women, even when controlling for education. But statistics alone didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to see what these disparities looked like—to trace the path from education to leadership, and to reveal where things break down. This report is an extension of that work. It’s an attempt to make systemic inequity visible, not just measurable. If you would like to read more about my statistical analysis, the poster is linked below.
Findings
To start with, I created a Leadership Representation Gap chart (image above) which measures the difference between the share of people who earn graduate degrees and the share of people in leadership roles within each race and gender group. Some notable takeaways were Black women have the largest negative gap at -11.4%. And white women, despite being the second largest negative gap, the jump in value between the two demographic groups is the largest at 3%. In contrast, White, multiracial, and other men show a positive gap, meaning they are overrepresented in leadership relative to their educational attainment. This chart puts the inequity in stark terms: even with higher education degrees Black women are still shut out of leadership at higher rates than any other group.
To better understand the nuances within the Black workforce, I created a dashboard (image below) that isolates Black women and Black men across graduate degree attainment and leadership roles, both in total and across major industry sectors.
Nationally, Black women account for 4.2% of all graduate degrees, nearly double that of Black men at 2.3%. Yet, when we look at leadership roles, the numbers are much closer: 1.7% for Black women, and 1.2% for Black men. This suggests a gendered leadership gap within the Black population itself, where Black women are outperforming Black men in education but are not equally advancing into leadership.
When we break it down by industry, the pattern holds. In the Corporate/Private sector, Black women earn 1.3% of degrees but hold just 0.3% of leadership roles. Versus Black men who earn 1.0% of degrees but hold 0.4% of leadership roles. In Academia, it’s 1.1% and 0.2%, versus 0.4% and 0.1%. This view helped affirm that even among highly educated Black professionals, Black women face a unique and compounded form of exclusion.
To contextualize Black women’s experience alongside other women, I expanded the view to compare race-gender groups for women only. This visualization (image below) reinforces a critical point that not all degrees yield the same return on leadership opportunity.
White women dominate with 42.4% of graduate degrees and 19.2% of leadership roles, a gap, yes, but still a more proportionate gap than other groups have. Black women, by comparison, hold 4.2% of graduate degrees but just 1.2% of leadership roles—a gap nearly three times larger. However, all women show similar patterns of underrepresentation.
Lastly, I created a time-series dashboard to view if more people from marginalized groups earn graduate degrees, will their representation in leadership improve? (dashboard below)
From 2013 to 2023, Black women’s graduate degree attainment was at a very slow decline from 4.3% to 4.1%. And during the same period, their share of leadership roles also barely budged, declining from 3.4% to just 3.1%. We see a similar path with other demographics as well, Asian and multiracial, who gain ground educationally and in leadership. Meanwhile, white men, though declining slightly in education and leadership share, continue to hold the highest share of leadership roles year over year.
The coinciding between the two lines, education, and leadership, makes a promising point though that a group improving its credentials could mean it’s gaining access to power. If you would like to further explore the dashboards or download the analysis, the workbook is linked below.
Data Process and Framework
To get the data, I used IPUMS USA, which provides detailed microdata from the American Community Survey (ACS). I customized my dataset through the IPUMS extract builder, selecting variables such as race, sex, education, occupation, and income from 2010 to the most recent year they have of 2023.
Cleaning the data was a big lift. Using R, I recoded all my variables of interest, since the columns were coded into discrete variables. I standardized income by adjusting for inflation using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index (CPI). I also created calculated fields, such as Degree Industry, Work Industry, and Leadership, to identify the industries that each degree major and occupation fall under and if the occupation is a position of leadership based on job title keywords (like “chief,” “executive,” “manager,” etc.). If you would like to further breakdown of occupational codes, the codebook is linked below.
Then in Tableau, I approached the analysis both intersectionally and exploratory. Rather than treat gender and race as separate factors, I analyze them together creating a view to see black women as one entity and all others as another. I also looked at more general comparisons of black women versus black men and other women.
There are, of course, limits. The ACS doesn’t capture non-binary gender identities. Industries and Leadership are inferred from job titles, which can be inconsistent. But even with those limitations, this dataset is rich and necessary for asking the kinds of questions to address this gap.
Reflection
This working session helped clarify what’s strong and where I still need to grow the project. I think one strength is the visuals tell clear stories. They make injustice visible in a way that tables and statistics can’t. Another is that combining multiple metrics (race, education, leadership, industry) helped give a fuller picture of the issue. Going forward, I’d like to add more filters and tooltips that make the dashboards more personal—so people can explore their own industry or identity group. I, also, want to add links and reference guides, to be more transparent about what counts as leadership or what falls under each industry and how graduate degrees are categorized, directly on the dashboards. Lastly, I want to share the dashboards with more Black women professionals and educators to gather feedback and ensure the visuals resonate and empower.
Ultimately, this project is about power, access, and voice. It’s about naming the disconnect between credentials and opportunity and giving people tools to see and challenge that disconnect for themselves. As I keep building, I hope these visuals become more than just data points. I hope they become part of a broader call for change.