The biannual Women in Technology Leadership Round Table was recently held at UC Berkeley and one of the main topics of discussion was the report, Women In Tech: Addressing the Root Causes of Attrition. DATAVERSITY brought this interesting topic to our attention in their article, “Women in Technology: More Diversity Needed in Computer Science Studies.”
Virginia Smith and Dr. Gitanjali Swamy were the authors of the much-talked about report, which provided a comprehensive view of research that has been conducted related to the number of women currently active in technological fields.
Some of the facts that drove the conversations and debates were:
- The overall number of female undergraduate computer science majors across the country was 18.7% in 2012, much lower than in 1984, when it was 37%, and 1991 when it was 29.6%.
- Across STEM fields, computer science and engineering continue to have the lowest level of participation from women, at below 20%.
- Computer science and engineering are among the occupations with the lowest percentage of female employees.
- At Google, females account for just 21% of leadership roles. It’s 23% at Facebook, 23% at Yahoo!, and 21% at Twitter.
The report included findings from the group’s own extensive and ongoing survey of over 200 women in technology and related fields, exploring the reasons for the lack of women in technology.
There is good news to be heard as well. Nearly 90% of women indicated that they were very confident in their skills and abilities as they pertain to their careers.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
