Gender-Balanced Hiring Dips for Women Working in Television, Study Finds

Women are falling out of focus on the small screen. According to a new report on gender and hiring in TV presented by IMDbPro and ReFrame — an initiative of Sundance Institute and WIF — women lost gains made over the past several years in nearly every position analyzed.

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Last year’s data found that women (or gender-diverse performers) accounted for 54 percent of lead roles, while the new report details a decrease of 13 percent to 41 percent. Also released as part of the study, ReFrame and IMDbPro award a Stamp to recognize gender-balanced hiring on television shows, and this year 77 of the 200 most popular TV and streaming series of 2023-24 earned the distinction (or 38.5 percent). The total represents a dip of 8.5 percent from last year, or 20 percent from a peak in 2020-21.

For a third straight year, the bulk of Emmy nominees for best comedy series earned a stamp including Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Hacks, Reservation Dogs and What We Do in the Shadows . Three of eight nominated drama series also landed one, including Fallout, The Morning Show and Mr. and Mrs. Smith , and three limited or anthology series including Baby Reindeer, Lessons in Chemistry and True Detective: Night Country.

Other top shows to earn a stamp include Ahsoka, American Horror Story, A Murder at the End of the World, Dr. Death, Fellow Travelers, Gen V, Girls5eva, Griselda, Lawmen: Bass Reeves, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Never Have I Ever, Sex Education, Special Ops: Lioness, Star Trek: Discovery, Under the Bridge and Will Trent , among others. The full list can be found here .

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“Positive trends in mitigating bias often flatline or roll back after a period of progress,” ReFrame founders Keri Putnam and Cathy Schulman explain in a joint statement. “It’s a testament to the efforts of many across the field that there are nearly twice as many Stamped series this year as when we began in 2018, but the drop of 20 percent over the last four years indicates a troubling trend. If this pace of reduction continues, all the progress made in diversifying the talent-shaping media in the U.S. will be erased in two years.”

The new data includes a company report card, and with the exception of Amazon MGM Studios, every distributor notched a lower percentage of gender-balanced series than in 2020-21. The data underscores the impact of women and women of color in key roles. All 13 series in the top 200 that are showrun by women of color snagged a ReFrame Stamp, while nearly 60 percent of stamped series employ women as showrunners compared to 32.5 percent of series overall.

Every season since 2018, ReFrame evaluates staffing on scripted television shows — using data from longtime partner IMDbPro — and awards its stamp to those who meet its criteria for gender-inclusive hiring in key positions in the cast and crew like showrunners, writers, directors, executive and line producers, leads, co-leads and department heads. Additional points are given to productions that hire women of color in those positions and to shows with overall gender parity in crews. To determine this year’s roster of recipients, ReFrame pulled IMDbPro data on the 200 most popular narrative TV and streaming shows with a full season of episodes released during Emmys eligibility from June 1, 2023, through May 31, 2024.

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