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#OscarsSoWhite, but These Industries Are Whiter

- Reuters Staff—Reuters
Reuters Staff—Reuters

Leonardo DiCaprio finally won his Oscar, but it was talk of Hollywood's lack of diversity that stole the show at the 88th annual Academy Awards.

Host Chris Rock kicked off the festivities by delivering an opening monologue almost exclusively about race in Hollywood and #OscarsSoWhite.

"It's the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. You gotta figure it happened in the 50s, 60s ... I'm sure there were no black nominees some of those years," Rock said. "And black people didn't protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time ...We were too busy being raped and lynched to care who won Best Cinematographer."

#OscarsSoWhite was a recurring theme throughout the night, with Rock, Kevin Hart, Kerry Washington, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and ABC newscaster Robin Roberts all addressing the complete absence of people of color among all acting nominations (and most of the other categories, too, for that matter).

"In this year's In Memoriam, it's just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on the way to the movies," Rock said, in one of the evening's most pointed comments.

"Is Hollywood racist? You gotta go at that the right way. Is it burning cross racist? No. Is it fetch me some lemonade racist? No. It's a different type of racism," he continued. "It's sorority racist: We like you, Rhonda, but you're not a Kappa."

All joking aside, we wondered, how does Hollywood in fact stack up to the rest of the workforce?

Read Next: Why You Should Care About the Hollywood Wage Gap

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. workforce is 66.1% white, 11.7% black, 16.4% Hispanic or Latino, and 5.8% Asian. When the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism looked at diversity on film, it found that of the top 100 movies of 2014, 73.1% of all speaking or named characters were white, 4.9% were Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% were black, and 5.3% were Asian.

Drilling down even further, the report noted that "only 17 of the 100 top films of 2014 featured a lead or co lead actor from an underrepresented racial and/or ethnic group." The same number of films featured no black speaking character at all, while over 40 movies had no Asian speaking role.

Finally, only 5 of the 107 directors of the year's top 100 films were black, and there were just 19 Asian directors across the 700 top‐grossing films.

How Hollywood Compares

Hollywood may be called on the (red) carpet right now, but there are other industries that fare even worse when it comes to diversity in the workforce. More than 80% of architects are white, for example, as are 81.2% of legal professionals (including 85.5% of lawyers). If we use Annenberg's numbers as a proxy for Hollywood's racial and ethnic breakdown, film acting is one of the more diverse sectors relative to other fields, especially within the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations. According to the chart below, nearly 84% of "artists and related workers" are white (the BLS does not provide separate breakout data on the race/ethnicity of actors).

 

That's not to undercut the importance of the spotlight #OscarsSoWhite put on diversity in film. As Money wrote about the Hollywood gender wage gap, representation is an important driver of any type of social change. But looking at which other industries are most lacking diversity will ensure the conversation doesn't stop until the 89th Academy Awards rolls around.

This a sampling of the careers that are disproportionately white (above 80%). Occupations in the arts are highlighted:

Occupation Percent White Percent Black Percent Asian Percent Hispanic or Latino
All Workers 66.1% 11.7% 5.8% 16.4%
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers 91% 2.6% 0.7% 5.7%
Fundraisers 89.8% 7.2% 1.1% 1.9%
Veterinarians 89.4% 3.4% 4.7% 2.5%
Archivists, curators, and museum technicians 88.8% 2.7% 0% 8.5%
Information security analysts 88.4% 3% 3.4% 5.2%
Veterinary services 87.7% 3.1% 1.7% 7.5%
Advertising and promotions managers 87.8% 0% 5.5% 6.6%
Psychologists 87.6% 4.1% 2.5% 5.8%
Chief executives 86.8% 3.6% 4.7% 5.5%
Directors, religious activities and education 86.3% 7.5% 1.1% 5.1%
Writers and authors 86.3% 4.9% 3.5% 5.3%
Lawyers 85.5% 4.6% 4.8% 5.1%
Environmental scientists and geoscientists 85.2% 1.3% 6.2% 7.3%
Librarians 83.9% 8.5% 2.8% 4.8%
Artists and related workers 83.8% 2.7% 4.1% 9.4%
Editors 82.4 2% 7.7% 7.9%
Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents 82.4% 4.8% 5.8% 7%
Producers and directors 82.3% 5.3% 5.6% 6.8%

 

These are the careers that are disproportionately non-white:

Occupation Percent White Percent Black Percent Asian Percent Hispanic or Latino
Graders and sorters, agricultural products 23.3% 18.6% 3.8% 54.3%
Miscellaneous personal appearance workers 28% 7% 56.5% 8.5%
Maids and housekeeping cleaners 30.6% 16.1 4.4% 48.9%
Barbers 32.3% 40.7% 6.4% 20.7%
Butchers and other meat, poultry, and fish processing workers 34.2% 22.4% 8% 35.4%
Baggage porters, bellhops, and concierges 35.6% 21% 10.5% 32.9%
Parking lot attendants 36.1% 32.1% 5.3% 26.5%
Packers and packagers, hand 37.9% 19% 5.6% 37.5%
Laundry and dry-cleaning workers 39.7% 17.7% 10.8% 31.8%
Dishwashers 40.5% 14.7% 5.1% 39.7%
Cooks 40.5% 18.5% 5.3% 35.7%
Taxi drivers and chauffeurs 40.9% 27% 15.1% 17%

These are a selection of the careers that are disproportionately black:

Occupation Percent Black Percent White Percent Asian Percent Hispanic or Latino
Barbers 40.7% 32.3% 6.4% 20.7%
Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides 37.7% 41.9% 5.6% 14.8%
Postal service clerks 43.5% 51.5% 8.7% 6.3%
Crossing guards 33.2% 46.4% 3.1% 17.3%
Parking lot attendants 32.1% 36.1% 5.3% 26.5%
Security guards and gaming surveillance officers 28.8% 52.6% 4% 18.6%
Bus drivers 28% 55% 2.7% 14.3%
Taxi drivers and chauffeurs 27% 40.9% 15.1% 17%
Bailiffs, correctional officers, and jailers 26% 61% 1.2% 11.8%
First-line supervisors of correctional officers 24.7% 66.3% 2.7% 6.3%
Probation officers and correctional treatment specialists 23.3% 60.6% 4% 12.1%
Social workers 22% 62.5% 3% 12.5%

 

These are a selection of the careers that are disproportionately Hispanic or Latino:

Occupation Percent Hispanic or Latino Percent White Percent Black Percent Asian
Graders and sorters, agricultural products 54.3% 23.3% 18.6% 3.8%
Roofers 51.2% 41.4% 6% 1.4%
Miscellaneous agricultural workers 50.7% 44.7% 3.5% 1.1%
Maids and housekeeping cleaners 48.9% 30.6% 16.1% 4.4%
Carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers 47.1% 44.6% 6.2% 2.1%
Construction laborers 45.5% 44.5% 8.1% 1.9%
Grounds maintenance workers 44.5% 46.7% 7.9% 0.9%
Brickmasons, blockmasons, and stonemasons 43.3% 51.4% 5.3% 0%
Dishwashers 39.7% 40.5% 14.7% 5.1%
Cleaners of vehicles and equipment 39.4% 46.9% 12.3% 1.4%
Cooks 35.7% 40.5% 18.5% 5.3%
Janitors and building cleaners 31.4% 47.6% 17.6% 3.4%

These are a sampling of the careers that are disproportionately Asian:

Occupation Percent Asian Percent White Percent Black Percent Hispanic or Latino
Miscellaneous personal appearance workers 56.5% 28% 7% 8.5%
Medical scientists 35.1% 53.6% 5.9% 5.4%
Software developers, applications and systems software 33.8% 55.8% 5% 5.4%
Physical scientists 23.9% 65.5% 4.4% 6.2%
Computer hardware engineers 23.4% 53.5% 12.1% 11%
Computer programmers 18.9% 67.2% 7% 6.9%
Aerospace engineers 18.6% 66.2% 2.1% 6.4%
Physicians and surgeons 18.4% 68.8% 6.4% 19.3%
Tailors, dressmakers, and sewers 17.1% 55.4% 5.3% 22.2%
Chefs and head cooks 16.8% 48.7% 15.2% 19.3%
Dentists 16.8% 71.7% 2.9% 8.6%
Financial analysts 16.2% 66.3% 11.1% 6.4%

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