Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

Time May Be Up But the Number of Women in Tech Remains Resolutely Down

Time is apparently up, or so they tell me at least.
The people who say this may know how to tell that the time is up. That does, however, rather seem to be the limit to their skill with numbers.
There is, you see, a bit of an issue with the numbers – and the logic – at times.

The fastest growing sector is, quite obviously, tech. This is also where we find the people not only getting the richest but doing so in the quickest way possible.

Thus, goes the reasoning, to reduce the inequality we should have more women in tech.
This is all logical and good.
The up and coming software companies should focus on hiring more women.
This too, is a decent enough idea. Here, however, we hit a bit of a snag.
Where exactly are Google and Facebook et all going to find all the women to close the gap?

Whatever the strategies for getting women to start coding have been in recent past they clearly are not working. The number of women graduating with a tech degree is not going anywhere fast. Percentage wise we have this rather un-progressive progression of events.

So the percentage of female tech graduates peaked in roughly 1983. It then falls of a cliff and keeps going downhill from there until finally stabilizing a decade ago.

It doesn’t get that much better when we look at the raw numbers either.
The total number of graduates may be starting to go up but at a rather slow rate so cannot do much more than keep the gap from widening further.
There has also always been quite a bit of entropy so we cannot really extrapolate anything to prognosticate about the current year or beyond.

This is further illustrated if we look back back 10 years to 2008 and compare with the previous 2 decades.


Looking back 10 years to 2008 and further to 1998 and 1988 we can see that the numbers are not exactly skyrocketing.
Total CS graduates 2008-09 was just below 12000 and both in 1998 and 1988 they were slightly above that. So not a huge win for the nice progressive year which gave us president Obama.

Other comparisons are not so great either. 2015-16 looks to be excellent by comparison since there were over 10K more recorded graduates than 2005-06. 2014 is also fairly good.
2013-14 on the flip side had a lack of almost 4000 compared to the decade prior.

While there is some anecdotal evidence of an uptick in recent years there is no real reason to think that 2018 and beyond will be wildly different.

The demand that Microogle InstaFaceTube, or whatever tomorrows mega corps will be called, should hire enough women to close the gap will likely seem as overly optimistic as it was when people said it 10 years ago.

Short of starting a massive operation for gender reassignment of all the neckbeards, how precisely, should we expect the tech sector to solve an impossible equation?

Education statistics source: National Center for Education Statistics. (https://nces.ed.gov/)

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Twatting on Tim
6 years ago

Women at work: Here I think, we get to the nub of the issue. Assuming we are intent upon taking this forward. Let us ignore what precise figure we will accept as ‘full employment’. The number is not arbitrary, but by for example, raising the pension age, or the school leaving age it can be shifted substantially at a stroke. Also there will always inevitably be a degree of churn at any given time and that is not only inevitable, but necessary. In terms of developing policy it is pointless to speak of ‘full employment’ without considering what we are… Read more »

BniC
BniC
6 years ago

But if gender is just a construct and even asking someone what their gender is in an interview will surely be discriminatory in the future then how can we ever properly measure the gender gap. If you have worked hard and your last survey showed that for those that chose to identify their gender (after all what right do you have to insist people answer) you have no gap and then a number of people decide to switch gender what are you to do, can’t hire new staff o balance it back out and can’t fire them

Pat
Pat
6 years ago

As far as getting more people to study tech is concerned the answer is simple, though unlikely to happen. Close down the easier courses. Since a large percentage of university entrants want the kudos of a degree for minimum effort, many must be taking easier subjects simply in pursuit of this goal.
BTW in accepting that Trans people exist we are also accepting that men an women differ in far more than appearance.

BniC
BniC
6 years ago

If 25% of the people who qualify for a job (have CS degrees) then surely as long as 25% of your workforce is of that type surely you cannot be discriminating.
Say there was a push to make nursing more gender diverse I’m pretty sure if you employed every male nurse that ever qualified in the last 30yrs it still wouldn’t be anywhere close to 50%, I’d be surprised it if it was over 20%

BniC
BniC
6 years ago

Maybe the royal College of midwives could start campaigning for 50% of midwives to be men, rather than affirming women’s right to select a midwife based on the midwives gender

Pcar
Pcar
6 years ago

@Twatting on Tim

Your posts on most articles are incoherent, disingenuous ramblings.

They add no value or relevant points to the debate.

Furthermore, your link to the same site every time is irrelevant and imho spamming.

Begone you foolish troll.

Fred Z
Fred Z
6 years ago
Reply to  Pcar

Quite right. Incontinent, incoherent gibberish from that person.

It’s probably Spudnik orbiting around Tim.

BniC
BniC
6 years ago
Reply to  Pcar

You forgot to use candidly

Southerner
6 years ago
Reply to  Pcar

TwoT has the basic decency to be one the first to comment on any new post. That means we can spot him easily and scroll right past, instead of having to navigate with care lest we encounter him halfway down the comment thread. Thank you for your consideration, TwoT.

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago

“Incontinent”

Excellent!

I think Twatso writes for the Incontinentaltelegraph.

jgh
jgh
6 years ago

The problem with comparing today’s CompSci graduates with ten years ago and 20, 30, 40 years ago is that today’s CompSci courses don’t teach what they taught 10/20/30/40 years ago. Today’s CompSci courses are – basically – “how to type”. Little better than “how to use a pencil” in non-electronic terms. 40 years ago CompSci course were actually computing science course, that actually tuaght you how to actually design, build and program computer systems and programs.

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago
Reply to  jgh

Yep. When you had to know what a half adder is.

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago

The way laws are written today, I assume the tech companies are guilty of discrimination, even if they hired EVERY WOMAN WHO APPLIED.

djc
djc
6 years ago

I think Pat and jgh nail it. Up to the 80s the career path into computing took many routes few involving a CompSci degree, or any degree at all. In the 90s the courses got easier, the ‘no way past the HR roadblock without a degree’ became established, computing looked like a sure thing. Now there are lots of easier courses and computing lookslike hard work with a very high risk of being displaced by an even greater fool halfway round the world. [PS as for the twat, just block it, there isenough clutter to navigate around on this site… Read more »

Tim Newman
6 years ago

The solution to this problem is already being applied: women will be employed regardless of their skills or competence in order to meet expected gender balances. Unless they run out of women, this isn’t a problem.

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago
Reply to  Tim Newman

Probably right. Leaving good, competent women to be viewed as TOKENS. In the long run, HURTING professional women.

Way to go, government!

Bloke on M4
Bloke on M4
6 years ago

BniC,

Precisely. I get involved in recruitment. We don’t hire women because we don’t see them. OK, i’ve interviewed 2. One wanted more money than we were offering (thanks for wasting our time). The other couldn’t pass a simple programming test.

Rhoda Klapp
Rhoda Klapp
6 years ago

Why is this a problem exactly? Who cares how many women are coding? They can do it if they want to, but if not many do, what’s the problem?

Gamecock
Gamecock
6 years ago
Reply to  Rhoda Klapp

The socialists get traction by complaining about ‘inequality.’

‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’ – H. L. Mencken

nick
nick
6 years ago

outside of the few jobs in very large companies who can employ redundant staff (and even then) most IT jobs are 24×7. as much as the system needs to be up and running are your working hours. this just doesnt fit well in the lives of people who bare the bulk of the burdens of family life and value more “life” in the work/life balance.

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