> I assume roughly half of pop stars are male, give or take.

I'd question that assumption. My gut feel says there are way more women pop stars?

I did a very quick bit of research, and maybe we're both wrong.

https://wealthygorilla.com/richest-singers-world/

Splits up as 31 men to 19 women on their top 50 richest singers list. So closer to 2/3rds men that half.

I did realise while counting, that my gut feel wouldn't have included a lot of those men as "pop stars", in retrospect probably because my interpretation of "pop music" leans heavily towards women, and rightly or wrongly I'd label at least half the men on that list as "rock stars" instead (and very few of the women).

Maybe it's related to the decades during which I grew up, but I'd say "rock star" had a better connotation than "pop star" when I was growing up.

"Pop stars" contained a lot of boy/girl bands or solo artists who "don't write their own songs/music" (among many other accusations of not being "real musicians").