The Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey 2.0

About this survey

Lee & Low Books released the first Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 1.0) in 2015. Before the DBS, people suspected publishing had a diversity problem, but without hard numbers, the extent of that problem was anyone’s guess. Our goal was to survey publishing houses and review journals regarding the racial, gender, sexual orientation, and ability makeup of their employees; establish concrete statistics about the diversity of the publishing workforce; and then build on this information by reissuing the survey every four years. Through these long-term efforts, we would be able to track what progress our industry shows over time in improving representation and inclusion.

Why Does Diversity in Publishing Matter?

The book industry has the power to shape culture in big and small ways. The people behind the books serve as gatekeepers, who can make a huge difference in determining which stories are amplified and which are shut out. If the people who work in publishing are not a diverse group, how can diverse voices truly be represented in its books?

The results of DBS 1.0 were stark. 79 percent of respondents identified as White. 78 percent were women. 88 percent were straight. 92 percent were non-disabled. At a time when readers of all backgrounds were demanding to see themselves in books, the publishing industry came nowhere near to reflecting the rich diversity of the United States.

Methodology and Response Rate

• 2,609
  Reviewer employees
• 1,528
  University press employees
• 17,100
  Trade publishing employees
• 516
  Literary agents

We expanded the DBS 2.0 to include a larger sample set than the original survey, including members of the Association of University Presses (AUP) as well as literary agents. In 2015, there were 3,706 responses to the survey. In 2019, we received 7,893 responses, showing a 112 percent increase in responses from DBS 1.0 to DBS 2.0.

Like the first survey, DBS 2.0 took a year to complete, beginning in January 2019. Reaching out to companies and trying to connect with decision-makers took the most time. Some companies took a lot of convincing; others agreed to participate and then dropped out for myriad reasons. Ultimately, 153 companies participated, including all of the Big Five publishers, eight review journals, forty-seven trade publishers, thirty-five university presses, and sixty-three literary agencies of all sizes from across North America. You can see the full list of participants here.

The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 2.0) was sent to 2,609 reviewer employees, 17,100 trade publishing employees, 1,528 university press employees, and 516 literary agents for a total of 21,753 surveys deployed. DBS 2.0 had a response rate of 36.2 percent. The survey was sent to both children’s and adult divisions of each company.

The DBS was sent out directly from each participating company’s internal contact person. To ensure the integrity of the data, we worked with a professional survey company called Toluna that administrated and deployed the survey for us. The surveys were completely anonymous, and companies did not have direct access to the results.

All data was analyzed and aggregated by a small team at Boston University consisting of Laura M. Jiménez, PhD (Lead) and Betsy Beckert, a graduate student in the Language and Literacy Department of Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. The team at Boston University ensured the anonymity of individual respondents, and they were the only ones with access to the raw data. Excerpts from Laura Jiménez about the statistics have been included below and are indicated by ” “.

Note: DBS 1.0 was deployed in 2015 and released in January 2016. DBS 2.0 followed a similar pattern and was deployed in 2019 and released to the public in January 2020.

Notes and Analysis: What the Numbers Tell Us

The Industry Overall

Race

According to the survey, 76 percent of publishing staff, review journal staff, and literary agents are White. The rest are comprised of people who self-report as Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (7 percent); Hispanic/Latino/Mexican (6 percent); Black/African American (5 percent); and biracial/multiracial (3 percent). Native Americans and Middle Easterners each comprise less than 1 percent of publishing staff.

“The 2015 survey reported that overall, 79 percent of people who work in publishing self-report as White. Given the sample size difference, this 3 percent change in White employees does not meet the bar for statistically significant change. There is no discernible change to any of the other racial categories. In other words, the field is just as White today as it was four years ago.“

There is no discernible change to any of the other racial categories. In other words, the field is just as white as it was four years ago.

Creating the list of ethnicities for a survey such as this is challenging. We received feedback from DBS 1.0 that some of the race categories were too broad or that subcategories should be separated out, e.g. Asian Pacific Islanders within the Asian American category. But we wanted to be able to compare data as well as to avoid any chance of compromising any individual’s personal identifiable information (PII), so we stuck with the racial breakdowns we offered in the first survey, which was based on the US census, with a few adjustments.

Gender

The survey reveals that publishing is about 74 percent cis women and 23 percent cis men. “The 2015 survey reported that overall, 78 percent of people who work in publishing self-report as cis women. The current survey has 74 percent of the respondents self-reporting as cis women. Given the sample size difference, this 4 percent change in cis women does meet the bar for statistically significant change.“ These numbers may help explain why some feel that book publishing caters more to female readers. Among executive and board member positions this disparity evened out somewhat, with approximately 38 percent of executives and board members identifying as cis men. This reflects the reality that males still ascend to positions of power more easily, even in female-dominated industries.

Concerning our gender question, we had significant input from various experts (listed in credits on the last slide) who helped us vet the choices for this question. Even so, the gender question reveals that about 97 percent of publishing staff identify as cis men or women, meaning that they identify with the genders they were assigned at birth. How does this compare with the general population? We don’t really know. That being said, the small number of genderfluid, non-binary, genderqueer, trans man, trans woman, and intersex people in publishing points to the need for publishers to make sure that books on these topics are examined for cultural and scientific accuracy by experts before they are published. We have a separate article on the need for targeted expert readers that relates to this issue. (Note: After receiving feedback regarding the wording of “woman/cis woman” and “man/cis man” in the survey, the terminology has been corrected to “cis woman” and “cis man” respectively in the infographic.)

Sexual Orientation

According to the survey, about 81 percent of publishing staff identify as straight or heterosexual. “This category saw the most change over the course of the study. In the initial survey, 88 percent of the respondents self-reported as straight. This survey saw a statistically significant negative change in the number of respondents that self-reported straight at 81 percent. The change can be largely attributed to the number that identified as bi and pansexual, 10 percent. Not surprisingly, most of these are White women, but that again is most likely attributed to the fact that the field is overwhelmingly White women. There was a slight drop in gay representation to 4 percent, and lesbian to 2 percent, with asexual holding at 1 percent.“

As the current administration calls for the removal of LGBTQ data collection in the next census, including LGBTQ representation in our survey seems more critical than ever.

During the planning of DBS 1.0, we debated internally whether to include a survey question on sexual orientation, since it is a question that human resources departments cannot ask their employees. We ultimately decided that if we did not acknowledge this aspect of diversity, this segment of the workforce would remain uncounted and invisible. Four years later, as the current administration calls for the removal of LGBTQ data collection in the next census, including LGBTQ representation in our survey seems more critical than ever.

Disability

We received good input from disability advocate Ace Ratcliff on the wording choices for this question. This input may have led more people to self-identify as having a disability in DBS 2.0. “There is a statistically significant change from 4 percent self-reporting a disability in 2015 to 11 percent reporting a disability in 2019. The clear majority of disabilities are mental illness (45 percent), physical disability (22 percent), and chronic illness (20 percent). There is a high co-morbidity within this data of mental illness and chronic illness co-occurring. We did some initial investigation into this phenomenon, and these findings are consistent with mental health and medical findings. Although this is not the focus of this survey, we took this to signify that this data is falling into line with other, more established research strands.

One hypothesis for this growth is that it is not growth at all, but a change in the way the field, and our society in general, views mental-health issues. In other words, the field of survey respondents may have experienced an uptick in mental health-issues, but this data is also consistent with national surveys that find more people are seeking out and identifying as experiencing mental-health issues.“ In a subsequent blog post, we will share more detailed data related to the disability question.

Notes and Analysis: What the Numbers Tell Us

The DBS 2.0 results offer the opportunity to filter responses by department, giving us a better picture of how inclusive (or homogenous) various publishing departments are in relation to each other. Space constraints prevent us from discussing every department, but we wanted to highlight the data for some of the departments that play a significant role in shaping which books are published and how they get into the world: executive positions, editorial, sales, marketing and publicity, reviewers, and literary agents. We also included interns, to provide a glimpse at what our industry’s future workforce may look like.

Data for these departments can be found in the slideshow above, and data from the previous study (for comparison) can be found here. A few interesting observations:

• More diversity at the top: The Executive Level saw some fairly significant changes in its numbers, with the percentage of people identifying as White dropping from 86 percent in 2015 to 78 percent today. In addition, the percentage of people identifying as straight dropped from 89 percent to 82 percent and the percentage of people with a disability increased from 4 percent to 10 percent. This is good news, since true change in company culture almost always requires buy-in from the very top.
• Editorial is even more White than before: The percentage of people in Editorial who self-identified as White increased from 82 percent to 85 percent. So, even though more diverse books are being published now, it’s fair to assume that the large majority of them are still being acquired and edited by White people.
• Marketing & Publicity is more racially diverse than other departments: Of the departments we address in the slideshow above, Marketing & Publicity is the area with the lowest percentage of White employees (74 percent), although it is less diverse than other departments in the other areas we surveyed.
• More people identify as disabled in book reviewing than in other areas of the publishing industry: Nineteen percent of book reviewers identify as having a disability, while in most other areas of the publishing industry, the number is closer to 10 percent. This trend is in line with data from DBS 1.0. Perhaps this is because reviewers are able to work freelance or remotely, without the constrictions of a 9-5 desk job in New York, which is notoriously inaccessible for those with disabilities.
• Literary agent demographics are in line with the rest of publishing: We did not include literary agents in the first DBS, but their inclusion has not really impacted the numbers because their demographics match the rest of the industry: mostly White, straight cis women who are not disabled.
• Interns are significantly more diverse than the industry as a whole: Of the interns surveyed in 2019, 49 percent identify as BIPOC; 49 percent are on the LGBTQIA spectrum; and 22 percent identify as having a disability. These numbers are a dramatic departure from the overall industry numbers and signal a new, more representative generation of entry-level publishing staff. The question is whether many of these interns will be retained and promoted, or whether they will burn out or leave publishing for other reasons before their presence can truly change the industry.
• Comparing apples to apples, there’s still no change: For those who wonder how much the inclusion of literary agents and university presses may have skewed the data, our last data slide removes these segments for a true apples-to-apples comparison to DBS 1.0. The largest change is in the sexual orientation category, which dropped from 88 percent straight/heterosexual to 82 percent. No other category changed by more than 4 percent.