I don’t know if the numbers you heard are exact, but a phenomenon called the “gender equality paradox” has been identified. As implied by the name, it is not fully understood.
Nursing is STEM, though, just as much as engineering. Paid less, lower social status, perhaps more flexibility, but definitely STEM.
and maybe it was because women are less interested in playing with objects… 
On a more serious note - I think we need to be careful about relying on cultural stereotypes for an explanation.
My former DIL started out as a physics major, took a CS class for fun, and changed to CS/math. Several of S1’s female friends who are now in CS started out as STEM majors in other areas, took a CS class, and were hooked. DIL didn’t program in HS; the other two took AP CS AB (back when it was offered and was a requirement for their program). DIL is at a FAANG company, one’s in a large software consulting firm and the other is a software engineer in Boston.
DIL had much to say about males talking over her (even though she was the project manager and lead engineer) and how some male coworkers took pieces she had written (case studies for publications, procedural guidelines, etc.) and slapped their names on it for publication. She was told to spend more time on teambuilding and leadership in order to get a promotion; promotion time came and she was told she needed to hone her tech skills (meanwhile others with the same time in grade and experience level were getting promoted). She ultimately got her promotion, transferred to another office and her manager is a woman she knows from various mentoring activities.
Among the informed, the fact that this is a sensitive area has nothing to do with Hume and the “moralistic fallacy”.
It has a lot to do with Francis Galton, David Starr Jordan, Charles Davenport, Harry Laughlin, Madison Grant and the “pseudoscience” called Eugenics (an ancestor to behavioral psych/genetics).
In the US, 64,000 people were sterilized based on theories/research promoted by a bunch of academics/researchers, who didn’t really understand either statistics or genetics. Laughlin, a Princeton Phd, won an honorary award for his contributions to the “science of ethnic cleansing” from a German university. Hitler called Grant’s book on eugenics “his Bible”.
I don’t have any answers here. I do have a few things that I have noticed.
First of all, I have been involved in stuff that is related to software engineering for a very long time. I don’t recall ever seeing more than a very small number of women in software engineering. I don’t think that the number that I am seeing now is much different than in the 1970’s, or 1980’s, or any other time that I can remember. Perhaps the issue is that this has not changed, in contrast to most other fields that requires significant education.
I have wondered whether the issue is not so much that woman are discouraged from working in computers, as it is that men are discouraged from working in fields that involve dealing with people. I have certainly known a lot of people, mostly men, who worked in computer science and who were not particularly sociable. Certainly my daughters have the ability to do well in computer science if they wanted to, but they would rather work in areas that involve people or animals or both.
Also, based on what I have seen in recent years in software engineering, there are so few US born software engineers left in the field that it is probably too late to change the trend by fixing US education (unless we want to get more Americans in general to go into software engineering). I do not work in the military industry, which I would expect would have more US-born employees. I have wondered whether what I am seeing is slightly more skewed than is normal across the industry.
I retired several years ago after getting my CS degree in '83. Like DadTwoGirls I never noticed a big change in the proportion of female programmers over that time. I did notice that the female American programmers were replaced by Indian and Chinese female programmers. In either case, if 20% of the programmers in any one place were female, that would have been considered a very high percentage. I certainly don’t think it has anything to do with object-oriented programming or new software development methodologies. There are more female technical managers now than when I first started programming, though.
I’m a computer science major. Very few of my classmates are women. While studying some of the early female pioneers in computing I think one of the things I read was that in the beginning computer work was viewed as secretarial, and since that was a career held primarily by women most people in computing were women. When computers were introduced to the public that began to change.
I don’t think girls are always supported in public school computing courses or ECs. I’ve read about situations where boys just take their equipment and ignore their ideas. Until we get buy in from teachers, EC advisors, and employers getting women back into computing will be an uphill battle.
I wonder how the current situation with regard to H1B visas is affecting this?
Interesting article about women programmers in science:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/womens-history-in-science-hidden-footnotes/582472/
Many US-born students don’t really want to be programmers. Programmers at high tech firms are the equivalent of the back/middle office workers at financial firms. Long hours but little recognition (monetary or otherwise). More restrictions on H1B visas would have significant impact on these tech firms.
I think this is a fascinating thread. It has sparked some great dinner table discussions in our family. A little background: Me- BSCS, MSCS, Wife- BSEE, MSEE, MBA, Son- undergrad CS student, Daughter- STEM oriented high school freshman, so we have a wide range of (anecdotal) experiences. A few standout from the link referenced in @bopper #284 as well as the 60 Minutes article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/closing-the-gender-gap-in-the-tech-industry-60-minutes/
On the topic of internships, S mentioned that landing key internships is very competitive, with acceptance rates at many of the Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft type companies in the low single digits. Discussions of why some are accepted and some not don’t appear to be limited by male/female but rather by “person X got in, why not me”. Sounds very similar to many of the college admissions posts on CC after decisions come out.
On negative messages going to girls, D said that no one has ever told her “girls can’d do that”. Looking back, it may be the case she has not received this type of message because all of her teachers (until now) have been women. So, we’;; need to monitor this. When we asked he about what the boys say she replied “not really, they always want to be in my group cause we rock it”.
So, maybe (I hope) things are getting better and not worse. In the 60 Minutes article Microsoft’s Bonnie Ross mentioned that her returning women interns typically have 5 to 7 other offers in hand, and Hadi Partovi from code.org is targeting millions of girls to learn programming. There appear to be many programs, conferences, and company forums focusing on this issue.
This leads to my last observation. In the Fortune article the interviewee mentioned how her style of dress singled her out from “a sea of techie uniforms—jeans and free tech company tee-shirts.” To this my S rolled his eyes, laughed and said “I completely understand”. Why? Because my son’s wardrobe (built up over the years) consists primarily of John Varvatos, Armani, and Burberry (yep, he’s a cloths horse). Many of his friends (he claims) insist that they can get through college entirely on give-away T-shirts.
I expect you have a biased sample. The majority of software engineers are natives from the US. However, different specific companies have different hiring policies, and as such some companies have higher or lower percent natives than the overall average. Some specific numbers from the BLS for all computer occupations are below. While the percentage foreign born has increased over time, the number of native employees also has rapidly increased over time, with exception of dot com crash in early 2000s.
Computer Employees in US
1980 – 0.5M US born, 0.02M foreign born citizens, 0,02M foreign born non-citizens
1990 – 1.0M US born, 0.07M foreign born citizens, 0,06M foreign born non-citizens
2000 – 2.9M US born, 0.26M foreign born citizens, 0,35M foreign born non-citizens
2005 – 2.8M US born, 0.35M foreign born citizens, 0,41M foreign born non-citizens
2010 – 3.1M US born, 0.45M foreign born citizens, 0,45M foreign born non-citizens
2014 – 3.5M US born, 0.56M foreign born citizens, 0,55M foreign born non-citizens
Consistent with this, if you look at the post graduate outcomes for CS majors at nearly any selective college in the US, nearly all are employed at US companies or in grad school, many have job title “software engineer”, and median salaries tend to be among the highest of all bachelor’s degree fields.
I wouldn’t agree with that. At high tech firms, programmers are the ones who produce the products that make their companies money. At financial firms, the people doing back/middle office work (I’m actually not sure what middle office work is) are in a support role. And programming does pay well above average in most instances.
It is the case that programming can be pretty monotonous, and I suspect a lot of kids avoid the field because of it.
Middle offices in financial services are the compliance, the risk management, IT, analytics support, etc. Middle office workers are generally paid in the low 6-figures, so they’re also considered well paid, compared to most other sectors. Everything is relative, however. They aren’t well compensated relative to the front office personnel, who drive up the cost of living in the area.
Typical programmers at high tech firms are similar, even though tech firms are significantly more egalitarian than financial firms. They’re generally considered well paid, but not well enough to offset the cost of living driven up by their better paid colleagues.
@Rivet2000 I actually disliked the 60 minutes article and was not a fan watching it on tv. I’ll explain.
I’m a woman - BSCE (87) MSCS (90) and D: BSChemE (soon) and S: CS major and from a line of other CS majors in the family (dad, grandfather).
What struck me as odd with the 60 minutes article was the failure to recognize what has really caused what the industry is seeing? Why are girls not pursuing CS degrees? And to understand that means you have to do some research. Interviewing a company like Microsoft isn’t going to shed light on the problem of ‘what really happened’. Microsoft has a very specific agenda it pushes for very specific purposes. So let’s travel back in time 18 years…
We had an enormous technical downturn that started end of 2000 with massive multiple layoffs and dot.coms going belly up throwing thousands of technical workers out of work all at the same time. Job interviews were few and far between. The number of actual positions available was ridiculous. Companies weren’t hiring. They were hoarding their money and not opening any recs. Unemployment was rapidly increasing and they were actually extending unemployment since so many were out of work. Contract positions were popping up but pay was half of what salaries were. Developers were changing jobs and getting out of tech careers. I was in that downturn just coming back from maternity leave. Interviewing for any opening was one of the worse experiences in my life.
So how many of these people do you think - decided to encourage their kids growing up to go into the very industry that kicked their mommy or daddy out when they were young? I specifically told my own daughter to NOT go into the CS industry.
For those women who did decide to stick with CS - Why aren’t we seeing more women in the workplace?
Because the very industry that NOW wants them - did nothing to retain them. The industry actually caused their own problems.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4279242/
I had a good friend who told me when he was a hiring manager (software development) he would typically come across major differences in pay to the point where raising the woman’s salary by 20% wasn’t even enough.
So when you consider the very big picture - that 60 minute piece was really just some self serving Microsoft media piece. It never discussed the ‘REAL’ issue. It can’t. It doesn’t want to scare girls away.
I asked my daughter this very question:
If I get up in front of a classroom of high school girls (going for STEM) and tell them everything they will have to do during high school, the college application process and maintaining a high gpa in college, and what it takes to find an internship and the job interview process and the entire day written test whiteboard problems - what percentage of girls will wish to do this? She said I would scare them all away.
The best of the best are getting the internships.
The best of the best are getting the job interviews and offers.
**Only a small few at each college can be the best of the best.
While our college engineering/stem classes are 40% women - we are seeing only 10% at internships and at job interviews being called in. I can still remember my daughter saying only 6 girls out of 60 mom.
Based on previous posts, I’m guessing you are talking about UT Austin. After graduation, 90% of UT Austin CS majors report either finding immediate employment or attending grad school. The employment for the most part was in quality, higher salary jobs. According to the most recent public salary survey, CS was the 3rd highest median salary major at UT Austin. It has likely moved up to at least 2nd since then, now that petroleum engineering is not as hot.
According to BLS statistics, the national unemployment rate for software developers (the closest grouping they have to CS) is under 2% due to a high demand compared to the number of positions. They project a 24 to 31% increase in available software developer positions over the next decade. This low unemployment rate and large number of quality jobs in relationship to graduates has contributed to US News ranking software developer #1 on their 2019 best jobs list – https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-developer .
From personal experience, I know many people (both men and women) working in quality CS jobs who were by no means “the best of the best” during college. Many were more mediocre students at a directional state type college who got some C’s in relevant courses, but did well enough to exceed 3.0 GPA type resume filters.
@comptechmom I had two take-aways from the 60 Minutes piece that seem reasonable. First is that there are concerted efforts at many levels to get girls interested in STEM. Second is that there is demand. Maybe the demand part needs more discussion.
It appears that (at least) Microsoft is actively looking for female talent, but I can extend that by experience to at least two companies: my ex-place of work (retired now) and my wife’s. Both are Fortune 50 tech companies. Both companies actively seek female tech talent, and both have had fairly good success in hiring, and are working hard to retain that talent.
The intern front is interesting to me because it can be very competitive. If you look at some of the most desirable CS internships the acceptance rates are in the low single digits, so students applying to those companies are competing against the best students from every college. That said, if you look at the intern classes at these companies they appear very diverse and girls appear to be well represented. Additionally, since the number of full time positions is greater that the number of intern spots, the prospects for full time hires should be better.
Why doesn’t it scare the boys away? I get there was a huge downturn in 2000, but why would the boys come back and not the girls, or why would the boys continue to major in CS and the girls wouldn’t?
I only have boys, so I don’t know that much about the supposed psyches of girls. My boy was 11 in 2000 and it never occurred to us to tell him to look for another field. And I had two brothers in the field and I knew they were feeling the pinch. It never occurred to me not to be an architect because it was a traditionally male field. If anything, that made me more eager to change the numbers.