Women aren’t in IT because they don’t want to be in tech

The story: We’ve heard this before: Women are missing in action from the ranks of IT. And for two decades, there has been a parade of programs to entice women into tech fields, from grade school through college.

What’s different now? We think that it’s time to come to terms with reality. Like it or not, the gender balance is not going to change for the foreseeable future, because the pipeline of women in computer science, already just a trickle, is slowing even more.

[ Learn why some women buck the trends and go for a career in tech — and how they make it work. ]

This issue is discussed endlessly. Does the disparity result from an environment that is too hostile to women, or perhaps high-achieving women prefer more socially relevant occupations? Maybe so.

But now there’s a controversial new take on the subject by two groups of researchers who reject those arguments. Women just aren’t interested, they say. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women — highly qualified for the work — stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Yes, we know. IT is much the poorer for having missed the gender-equality boat. But facts are facts.

According to a report in the Boston Globe: “One study of information-technology workers found that women’s own preferences are the single most important factor in that field’s dramatic gender imbalance. Another study followed 5,000 mathematically gifted students and found that qualified women are significantly more likely to avoid physics and the other ‘hard’ sciences in favor of work in medicine and biosciences.

“Another study found that women who are mathematically gifted are more likely than men to have strong verbal abilities as well; men who excel in math, by contrast, don’t do nearly as well in verbal skills. As a result, the career choices for math-precocious women are wider than for their male counterparts. Sure, they can become scientists, but they can also succeed just as well as lawyers or teachers. With this range of choice, their data show, highly qualified women may opt out of certain technical or scientific jobs simply because they can.”

Women received about 38 percent of the computer science bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in 1985, the peak year. By 2003, the figure was down to about 28 percent, according to the National Science Foundation. Five years later, the number has dropped to about 20 percent in the United States and Canada, says Gail Powley of the University of Alberta’s Department of Computer Science. And remember, the women in college today picked their majors before the recession, when IT was still riding high.

The dry pipeline foreshadows representation that’s even thinner than it is today. Women accounted for 16.6 percent of all network and computer systems administrator positions in 2006, down from 23.4 percent in 2000. At the management level, the imbalance also persists: Among computer and IS managers, for example, 27.2 percent were women in 2006.

The bottom line: The studies we’ve cited may be flawed, but there’s no arguing with the university enrollment numbers. Like it or not, IT is going to remain a boys’ club for the foreseeable future.

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