Despite national conversations about gender diversity in tech, women are still underrepresented,
underpaid and often discriminated against in the tech industry.
Statistics from seven facets of IT work, ranging from higher education to workplace environment,
paint a clear picture of the challenges women face in finding equal footing in a career
in IT. 1. The employment gap
Women make up 47 percent of all employed adults in the U.S., but as of 2015, they hold only
25 percent of computing roles, according to data from the National Center for Women & Information
Technology (NCWIT). Of the 25 percent of women working in tech, Asian women make up just
5 percent of that number, while black and Hispanic women accounted for 3 percent and
1 percent, respectively. 2. The degree gap
According to data from the National Science Foundation, more women than ever are earning
STEM degrees — and they are catching up to men in earning bachelor’s degrees in
science and engineering subjects. But women earned only 19 percent of computer science
degrees at the bachelor level in 2016. 3. The retention gap
Once a diploma is earned, the real work begins, and here the numbers for women in tech are
perhaps even more troubling. Only 38 percent of women who majored in computer science are
working in the field compared to 53 percent of men, according to data from the National
Science Foundation. Similarly, only 24 percent of women with an engineering degree still
work in engineering, compared to 30 percent of men. This is a consistent trend that has
been dubbed a “leaky pipeline.” 4. Workplace culture gap
A 2017 poll in the Pew Research Center report found that 50 percent of women said they had
experienced gender discrimination at work, while only 19 percent of men said the same.
The numbers were even higher for women with a postgraduate degree (62%), working in computer
jobs (74%) or in male-dominated workplaces (78%).
In addition to increasing the likelihood of gender-related discrimination against women,
male-dominated workplaces pay less attention to gender diversity (43%) and cause women
to feel a need to prove themselves all or some of the time (79%), according to Pew’s
2017 research. 5. The founder gap
Only one in four startups have a female founder, according to a study from Silicon Valley Bank.
And the founder’s gender has a direct impact on gender diversity, the study found. For
startups with at least one female founder, 50 percent had a female CEO compared to just
5 percent for companies with no female founder. Making matters worse, startups with at least
one female founder reported more difficulty finding funding.
6. The pay gap Women are not only underrepresented in STEM,
they are also underpaid — and that hasn’t changed in over 25 years. For computing fields,
women earn 87 percent of what men earn. The numbers are even worse for black women in
STEM who earn around 87 percent of white women’s salaries and just 62 percent of what men earn.
7. IT leadership gap According to IDC, the percentage of women
in senior leadership positions grew from 21 percent to 24 percent between 2018 and 2019.
And that’s good news, because having women in senior leadership positions can positively
impact female employee engagement and retention. In organizations where 50 percent or more
senior leadership positions are held by women, they’re more likely to offer equal pay and
female employees are more likely to stay with the company longer than a year, report higher
job satisfaction and feel the company is trustworthy. Although these statistics are trending upward,
women still feel less enthusiastic about their senior leadership prospects than men. The
IDC report found that 54 percent of men said they felt it was likely that they’d be promoted
to executive management in their company, while only 25 percent of women said the same.