Why Women Go Elsewhere: A Study of Women's Underrepresentation in Computer Science

Introduction

Women earn less than 25% of undergraduate computer science (CS) degrees and hold less than 25% of CS jobs (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). However, they earn over 50% of all undergraduate degrees and hold over 50% of professional jobs in other disciplines (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Women are underrepresented across the CS discipline, including design, development, data mining, and management (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). The absence of women creates a void in which employers do not fully consider their needs within the organization nor the industry-wide factors contributing to their underrepresentation (Cirillo et al., 2020; Miner et al., 2016). Research indicates that multiple factors drive women's absence from CS, dissuading some from considering a CS career and leading others to abandon a CS program quickly (Cheryan et al., 2009; Cortland, 2019; Sax, Lehman, et al., 2016). Despite decades of research demonstrating the continued existence of this problem, the factors contributing to the problem, and exploring potential solutions to the problem, women's underrepresentation in the CS industry persists to the detriment of both women and the broader society that the CS industry serves.

To explore the reasons for this persistence, in this chapter, we examine existing scholarship on women's underrepresentation in the CS field to argue that understanding women's views of CS provides a platform for designing and implementing effective educational programs that better align with the goals of bringing more women into CS. The chapter presents the information in five sections. First, the chapter begins with a discussion of the centrality of CS in society to demonstrate the necessity of equitable representation in this industry. Second, the chapter examines the data on women's underrepresentation and the impacts this underrepresentation has on the CS industry. Third, the chapter explores the documented reasons why women avoid CS. Fourth, the chapter describes scholarship documenting reasons female CS professionals pursue careers in the industry. Fifth, this chapter critically assesses several attempts to increase female representation among the CS workforce. This chapter concludes by noting that many attempts to increase female representation within the CS industry failed to make a substantive change. These attempts to remediate the problem often focused on helping women achieve short-term goals within the industry. As a result, we argue in this chapter that the next phase in attempts to cultivate equitable gender representation in the CS industry should instead focus more on identifying and creating educational preparation programs as well as industry-wide institutional support structures more aligned with identifying and empowering female professionals in the industry to achieve their long-term career goals.