Lack of Diversity Within EA

[Edit: This post had negative karma when I made this comment]

I'm sorry that your first post on the forum is getting a bit of a negative reaction. It's great to have you here and I hope this isn't super off-putting! 

If you are interested in some actual numbers on demographics, check out the EA Survey posts, like this one from 2024.

My thoughts on your questions:

I am curious on the communities thoughts on this lack of diversity.

I personally don't mind much. Almost any community will have demographic weirdness of some kind, and I don't inherently value diversity. I know others find it concerning, but I am not aware on survey data on this. You can definitely find quite a bit of writing on this topic if you search the forum.

if there are any initiatives being taken to improve diversity within the EA community

I am unsure what you mean by "improve". But most EAG events I have been to have meet-ups for various demographic groups. I have never attended these (despite "qualifying" for a few). But I know others really like organising and attending these. The most recent EAG London had meet-ups for the following: neurodiversity, people of colour, Christians, women and NB people, people from low and middle income countries, Jews, socioeconomic diversity, LGBTQ+.

(You may be getting downvoted for the line "This demographic has historically been disconnected from social impact". Perhaps consider elaborating why you think that.)

This demographic [white, male, and tech-focused] has historically been disconnected from social impact

This seems extremely false to me. What evidence do you have for this being true?

I mostly just want to join the chorus of people welcoming you here and repudiate the negative reaction that a very reasonable question is getting. It’s worth adding 3 things:

• The demographic balance is improving over time, with new EAs in 2023 and 2024 being substantially more diverse.
• Anecdotally, the EA forum skews whiter, more male, and more Bay Area. I personally feel that the forum is increasingly out of touch with ‘EA on the ground’, especially in cause areas such as global health. Implementing EAs very rarely post here, unfortunately. Don’t take any reaction here as representative of broader EA.
• Anecdotally (and I believe I’ve seen some stats to back this up), some cause areas are more diverse than others. Global health and animal welfare seem to be substantially more diverse, specifically.

I wasn't sure myself about what has done in the past to improve diversity, so I checked the diversity and inclusion tag on the forum. This led me to a very thorough, very detailed post from March 2025 called "History of diversity efforts and trends in EA" by Julia Wise, who works at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) as a community liaison. (That post is quite long, so you might want to look at the SummaryBot summary first and then check the parts of the article that interest you.)

I also know that there are some groups online like the Facebook group Women and non-binary people in Effective Altruism. Julia Wise's post lists some others under "Organizational / program efforts". 

Beyond the groups Julia's post lists, there might also be Discord servers, Slack teams, or other private or semi-private groups for people in EA of certain demographics. You'd have to look around and maybe ask around.

I'm bringing up these kind of groups both because a) I have to think they increase retention of people in EA because people in these demographics have a place to commiserate and support each other and b) a group like this might be a good place for you to inquire about this topic further.

Part of the difficulty with improving diversity in EA is EA's connection to LessWrong and the San Francisco Bay Area rationalist community, which has an alarmingly high level of endorsement of, curiosity toward, or sympathy to far-right, alt-right, racist, anti-feminist, anti-trans, white nationalist, white supremacist, and/or authoritarian views.^[1] It would be great if EA could just chop off this noxious community like a necrotic limb, alas, for now, it is part and parcel of the EA community. Improving diversity in EA will always be met with some very vocal resistance as long as the two communities remain entwined. I don't know what to do about this, except either give up on EA or keep arguing with people about this.

My recommendation is if you care about diversity and want to be involved in EA, it might be better to focus on an EA group local to you or some other corner of the EA movement where a significant majority of the people do care about diversity and would support diversity initiatives. In public online spaces related to EA like the EA Forum, diversity and diversity initiatives are a contested topic that not everyone agrees is good. Similarly, the online groups that focus on certain demographics in EA might be a nice experience for that reason. 

In terms of effective altruism conferences like EA Global (EAG) or the various EAGx conferences, I don't know what the atmosphere around diversity is like. I also don't know how diversity is handled at the various major EA organizations like the Centre for Effective Altruism, 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can, or EA Funds. 

I think different pockets of the EA movement in different places or focusing on different cause areas or involving different networks of people can sometimes have quite different atmospheres or subcultures (for lack of a better word), so I don't want to give you the impression that all of EA is the same with respect to diversity.

1. ^{^}

   See this blog post by the philosopher David Thorstad for an overview/introduction. I also think this EA Forum post by a pseudonymous participant in several Bay Area rationalist events in 2024 encapsulates some of the very serious problems with that community. 

I am curious on the communities thoughts on this lack of diversity 

In previous surveys, diversity/JEID related issued have often been mentioned as reasons for dissatisfaction. That said, there are diverse views about the topic (many of which you can read here, it's much discussed).

Community Health Supplementary Survey 

EA Survey 2019: Community Information

Hello! Great to have you on-board.

While I'm very supportive of improving the intracommunity experience of members of marginalised groups, I'm skeptical of outreach to them (above and beyond general outreach). What being an EA is, is a substantial personal sacrifice in favour of helping other people you'll probably never meet. I'm not sure it's effective, or appropriate, to disproportionately ask for that sacrifice from members of marginalised groups.

For example, I don't think we should be asking black Americans (more than white Americans) to fundraise for malaria prevention for black African children, just because they're both black. That, to me, seems incredibly crass. Being an EA as a whole is basically that, a couple steps removed - make substantial sacrifices to effectively help some of the most marginalised people in the world.

I'm glad to hear you are inspired by EA's utilitarian approach to maximizing social impact; I too am inspired by it and I have very much appreciated being involved with EA for the last decade.

I think you should probably ask questions as basic as this to AIs before asking people to talk to you about them. Here's what Claude responded with.

The observation about EA's demographic skew is accurate and widely acknowledged within the community. A few points worth making:

On the historical pattern: The claim that white, male, tech-focused demographics are "historically disconnected from social impact" isn't quite right - these demographics have been heavily involved in philanthropy and social reform movements throughout history (from industrialist philanthropy to the civil rights movement's diverse coalition). But the observation that EA specifically has a particular demographic concentration is valid.

Why this pattern exists: Several factors likely contribute:

• EA grew out of academic philosophy and rationalist communities that had their own demographic patterns
• The movement's early focus areas (AI safety, global poverty, animal welfare) and analytical approach appealed to certain demographics more than others
• Network effects and social clustering naturally amplified initial patterns
• Geographic concentration in places like the Bay Area and Oxford

On diversity efforts: EA organizations have made various attempts to broaden participation, though with mixed results. There are efforts around:

• Outreach to different universities and regions
• Scholarships and programs aimed at underrepresented groups
• Discussion of how framing and culture might inadvertently exclude some people

The harder question: There's ongoing debate about whether demographic diversity is primarily valuable instrumentally (does it improve EA's thinking and impact?) or intrinsically (is it important regardless of instrumental benefits?). Different people in EA would answer this differently, and it connects to deeper questions about EA's core commitments and priorities.

Worth noting that some core EA principles (like cause impartiality and willingness to update beliefs based on evidence) might themselves be culturally specific in ways the movement doesn't always recognize.

I find this post quite good, especially the section I linked, specifically noting that solidarity≠altruism. Also this post.