What are these numbers?

Using the U.S. 2014 demographic statistics, we estimated what fraction of women (or men) represented (as a % of total humans) should be non-white if the U.S. magazine representation tracked U.S. demographic representation. These are reflected in the darker grey bars ▆ .

We then calculated the actual fraction of women (or men) who were non-white in the magazines, which are reflected by violet bars ▆ .

For example, in Vogue's Median graph for Advertising, 94% of people in advertising are Women. Of these, approx 24% should be women of color if the representation tracked demographics. However, in reality, approx 12% were.

Data is gathered per page of the U.S. digital editions of Vogue, Elle, and Cosmopolitan for each month. Please contact us if you can help with gathering the data.