Women Lose Ground in IT, Computer Science
Author: National Center for Women & Information Technology
Date: 2007
Source: National Center for Women & Information Technology
Full Text Link:
Available at the NCWIT site (http://www.ncwit.org/pdf/Scorecard.pdf)
Synopsis:
Data on girls and women in computer science and IT from kindergarten to the workplace (academic and industry).
Keywords:
IT careers, report,
Abstract:
Women are falling further behind in information technology and computer science, according to a new report released by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). The study, the NCWIT Scorecard, compiled data on girls and women in computer science and IT as students at the K-12 and post-secondary levels, as well as women working as professionals in IT and as faculty in computer science in higher education. It painted a fairly bleak picture of the situation in the United States, where women make up the drastic minority of participants in science- and technology-related studies and where that minority shrinks further the higher one looks up the academic and corporate ladder.
(Nagel, David http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/52710)
Implications for Game Industry:
No Implications have been written for this entry.
Research Highlights:
- Women are a “drastic minority” in science- and technology-related studies and the numbers are shrinking at every stage.
Highlights by Zeynep Tufekci, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
. Girls represented 56 percent of all Advanced Placement (AP) exam-takers in 2006. Yet girls comprised fewer than 151 percent of all APcomputer science exam-takers - the lowest representation of any AP discipline.
. Between 1983 and 2006, the share of computer science bachelor's degrees awarded to women dropped from 36 to 21 percent.
. Women hold more than half of professional positions overall, but fewer than 22 percent of software engineering positions.
. Within the top Fortune 500 IT companies, fewer than five percent of Chief Technical Officers are women.
. Recent data from the College Board's SAT test indicate a surprising disparity between math aptitude and a female student's choice of computing and information sciences as her prospective major. This disparity highlights an overlooked opportunity to attract skilled students to the field and to encourage those with developing career interests to explore their talents in computing-related fields.
. Women earned nearly 60 percent of all undergraduate degrees at American colleges and universities in 2006, and yet in computing and information sciences they earned only 21 percent of bachelor's degrees. There are few STEM disciplines in which women are more poorly represented. In fact, a comparison of degree data from various scientific fields reveals that women now obtain a majority of the degrees in biological disciplines and are near parity in mathematics.
. In computer science, the number of bachelor degrees awarded to women between 1985 and 2004 dropped from 37 percent to 25 percent. In fact, the number of these degrees awarded to women was nearly the same in 2004 as it was in 1985.
. Women currently hold 56 percent of professional positions in the U.S. workforce. ...
Yet women hold only 27 percent of professional computing-related positions.
