The digital wage gap: women influencers may be the majority, but they still earn less

msn.com:

Wired magazine asked why, in the digital world, women were called “influencers” and yet men were “content creators. ” The distinction existed across industries, from the infamously sexist video games sector, where men predominate, to fashion, where women are more numerous.

Some social media celebrities may find the increasingly reviled word “influencer” too frivolous. But on their platforms, as in society in general, women’s work has less value than men’s: females take on the passive role of influencing, while males are actively “producing. ”Since the Wired article, several digital marketing agencies have wondered whether this difference in names had any real consequences.

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. A 2019 study by the HypeAuditor platform concluded that male influencers earned 7% more. More than 1,600 influencers of both genders, and with audiences from 20,000 to one million, were polled.

The gender gap widened as the number of followers grew. The most famous men received, on average, €2,500 per Instagram post, while women made €2,200.