Popular Music Still Shuts Out Women as Artists, Songwriters & Producers

The newest report from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative reveals that women’s participation in music did not accelerate in 2025.

LOS ANGELES, March 13—The world celebrated women and their achievements on International Women’s Day, but for women in music, there’s not much good news to share. A new study reveals that for women in the record business, years of advocacy have produced no change.

The study, from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, is the latest iteration of Inclusion in the Recording Studio. The report examines 14 years and 1,400 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts. The gender and race/ethnicity of artists, songwriters, and producers on the most popular songs of the year were tabulated. Additionally, the report assessed 6 major categories at the Grammy® Awards: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Producer of the Year, and Songwriter of the Year.

Women artists in 2025 held 36.1% of spots on the most popular charts. This is virtually unchanged from 2024 (37.7%). While there has been change since 2012, when less than a quarter of artists (22.7%) were women, gains have plateaued since 2023. Women fared best in 2025 as artists in a band or group, given the success of Huntr/x and K-Pop Demon Hunters. As individual artists, however, women’s participation fell to 34.5%, a drop from 38.9% in 2024 and on par with 2012 (35.8%).

“We’ve reported that 2025 was a downturn for women film directors, a reversal of progress for women in leading movie roles, and now fewer women on the top charts in music,” said Dr. Smith. “This is three strikes against the entertainment industry and tells us that women’s place in this business is shrinking. Parties, awards, and community building have not created change. They have fostered a community of women whose industry does not support them or their work.”

“If the music business truly wanted to change these numbers, it is simple: work with women,” Dr. Smith continued. “Nicole Kidman, Chloe Zhao, and Gracie Abrams have shown that it is not only possible to embrace this strategy, but that it is can be incredibly successful to do so.”

For women songwriters and producers, 2025 was also a year with no change. Only 14.5% of all songwriters were women, down from 18.9% in 2024. There has been no change for women songwriters since we began this research. The numbers are going backward and now are not significantly different than the 11% of songwriters in 2012 who were women. Half of the songs on the Hot 100 Billboard Year-End Chart were missing women songwriters entirely. Across 14 years, women held 13.9% of all songwriting credits.

“The lack of women songwriters does more than prevent women from working,” said Dr. Smith. “It means that some of our most culturally pervasive ideas and beliefs are crafted by men and exclude women’s creativity and perspective. Of the 1,400 songs we examined, 11 men were credited on 21.7% of those tracks. This gives a very small group incredible influence to shape culture and ideas.”

A mere 4.4% of producers in 2025 were women. There has been no change over time, though the number of women receiving producing credit has increased from 5 in 2012 to 11 in 2025. More than 90% of songs evaluated across 11 years were missing even one woman producer—in comparison, only 7 songs did not credit a man in a producing role. Across all years, men outnumbered women as producers by 27 to 1.

One area where the industry has seen an increase is for artists from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. In 2025, more than half (57.8%) of all artists were underrepresented, bouncing back from 44.6% in 2024 and exceeding the baseline of 38.4% in 2012. The increase for underrepresented artists as a whole means that underrepresented women also fared better in 2025. Of all women artists, 60.4% were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, a significant increase from 2024.

Looking to other creative roles, only 29 songwriters were women of color in 2025. This number is virtually unchanged from 2024 (26) and reflects an increase from 2012 (14). In contrast, there were 43 white women writers in 2025, which declined from 61 in 2024.

As producers, women of color are virtually invisible. Only 4 women of color worked as producers in 2025, and only 1 was not also a performer on the song she produced. In 11 years, men outnumbered underrepresented women at a ratio of 94.5 to 1.

Only 19.3% of all Grammy nominees across 6 major categories were women in 2026. This is an increase from 2013 (7.9%) but is no different than the 22.7% of women nominated last year. Women were most likely to be nominated for Songwriter of the Year, Best New Artist, and Song of the Year. Fewer than 15% of nominees for Record and Album of the Year were women and no women were nominated as Producer of the Year in 2026. Over time, there have been fluctuations across categories, with overall improvement in nominations in 5 of 6 categories. Only in Album of the Year do the nominations in 2026 reflect those in 2013.

In 2026, 61.1% of all Grammy nominations for women in these 6 categories went to women of color. White women earned 38.9% of the nominations that went to women. This is a significant increase from 2013 for women of color, though there is no consistent increase or decrease over time in terms of nominations. Underrepresented women were more likely than white women to receive only 1 Grammy nomination across all 14 years studied.

For the first time, the report examined Grammy winners in 6 major categories. In 14 years, only 13.2% of all Grammy winners were women. There has been significant percentage change for women since 2013, when 5% of winners in these categories were women. However, this reflects an increase from 1 woman to 5 women winning a Grammy in major categories. Only 2 women of color won a Grammy in these 6 categories in 2026.

“Changes to the Grammy Awards have yielded more opportunities for women than when we first began examining the numbers," said Dr. Smith. "Yet there are still gaps in the honors women receive. In particular, even as nominations for women increased, their likelihood of winning stayed relatively the same. Artistic quality and creative achievement should not be something that differs by gender, yet at the Grammy Awards this is still the case.”

The report is the latest from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and can be found here.

About USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative

Launched more than 15 years ago by Founder Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is the leading think tank in the world studying diversity and inclusion in entertainment through original research and sponsored projects. Beyond research, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative develops targeted, research-based solutions to tackle inequality. To learn more, visit http://annenberg.usc.edu/aii or follow on Instagram.