Why Aren’t There More Women in IT?

Despite there being more women on the workforce, in general, today than, say, 30 or 40 years ago, they remain severely underrepresented in IT and the tech industry in general – according to a 2016 study, women held about 25 percent of computing jobs. One may say that it isn’t too bad for a traditionally male-dominated industry and that achieving gender parity takes time – but in fact, the percentage of female IT specialists doesn't grow – on the contrary, it has been steadily declining after peaking at 31 percent in 1991. So why does it happen despite all the efforts to the contrary? Let’s try to find out.

1.Fewer Women in Talent Pool

Men and women are traditionally perceived to be better at certain kinds of jobs, and all efforts of the feminist movement notwithstanding, these stereotypes remain extremely hard to budge. Some spheres are considered to be more natural for women (healthcare, education, psychology, public administration), and those more suitable for men – and software development is one of the most male-dominated spheres of expertise. This kind of conditioning on the part of society discourages young women from pursuing computer science on the university level and suggests that they choose something safer, even if their real interest lies in IT. University computer science courses show some of the most severe gender disparity - women are outnumbered by men 17 to 83 percent – only marginally behind engineering majors.

2.Hostile Work Culture

For an industry so predominantly dominated by males, it is only natural to develop a “brogrammer” culture that is skeptical about female programmers at the very best, and openly hostile at worst. Even those few women that manage to land a job with software development companies find themselves isolated and subject to stereotyping and open bullying on the job. As a result, women are 45 percent more likely to leave tech industry after one year than men.

3.Men Tend to Hire Men

According to numerous studies, hiring managers tend to favor people who remind them of themselves, who are culturally similar – act like them, have similar interests, went through similar experiences and so on. In IT industry it is only natural for a male hiring manager or a group of male startup founders to hire other men to complement their team.

4.Women Earn Less in IT

It, again, comes as a result of traditional gender bias – men are perceived to be better at maths and computer science, and their female counterparts are often seen as less valuable employees who can be paid less – pay gap goes as high as 30 percent for employees under the age of 25. In tech careers, women usually start behind men on the salary scale and spend most of their career trying to catch up – so it is no wonder that many of them feel discouraged to stick to their choice.

5.Lack of Role Models

With so few women being and staying in the IT industry, it is no wonder that aspiring young female programmers have few role models to give them proof that their aspirations are achievable. On the contrary – the status quo serves to perpetuate itself, demonstrating again and again that coding isn’t for women and those few who work in this industry are exceptions. A study of recruiting sessions carried out in Stanford showed that recruits are immediately given an impression of the industry where women have a supporting role at best.

At the same time, it is obvious that women have a lot to offer to the IT industry – which means that the sooner the current trend is broken, the better.