Lee & Low Books, along with co-authors Laura M. Jiménez, Betsy Beckert, Rory Polera, and Jacke C. Dietiker, have published the results of the 2023 Diversity Baseline Survey, the first DBS survey in four years.
With regard to race, the survey found that 72.5% of publishing, review journal, and literary agency staff are White/Caucasian, which marks a steady change from the first survey in 2015 (79%) and the most recent survey in 2019 (76%). While this could reflect a change in hiring practices, among other factors, the authors cautioned that each iteration of the survey has had an increasingly large participant pool with "more and varied publishers participating."
The largest change in racial categories was the Biracial/Multiracial category, which rose to 8.4%. Other racial categories--which are all self-identified by responders--went "almost completely unchanged," save for what appears to be a statistically significant decrease in people identifying as Hispanic/Latino/Mexican. The results also pointed to an "alarming lack of representation" within the industry of people identifying as American Indian/Alaskan Native/First Nations/Native American, and as Middle Eastern.
With regard to gender, "cis women are still the dominant demographic at 71.3%," and overall, 91.9% of publishing staff identify as cis men or cis women. For sexual orientation, "about 68.7% of publishing staff identify as straight or heterosexual," which marked a "statistically significant negative change" compared to past surveys.
The full results, including breakdowns of data concerning disability, age, and location, can be found here.