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It's quite a common experience that there are fewer women and African (-American) people in programming as warranted by the natural proportions. It is not so obvious whether this is due to discrimination or cultural differences (the difference being in whether the minorities are uninterested or the majority discriminatory).

Martin Fowler seems to think there is proof of discrimination in his latest blog post:

One point of view I hear fairly regularly is that these diversity imbalances are natural - because women don't have the aptitude or inclination for programming. This point of view upsets a lot of people but I think it's important to treat it seriously. I think of it as a hypothesis, which I'll call the natural balance hypothesis. It needs to be treated seriously because there's plenty of people who feel it explains the current situation - but I argue that it has two serious flaws, which mean that I must vigorously reject it.

I don't agree he is presenting any valuable proof, mostly pseudo logic based on mere speculation, but this doesn't mean he is wrong. Are serious studies supporting or contradicting his claims?

gerrit
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Sklivvz
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    Most comments were completely off-topic and did not help make this question better, as such I've cleaned up the thread. Let's not get carried away and keep (tentative) answers in the answer box. – Sklivvz Jan 16 '12 at 17:17
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    Are you calling BS on Fowler's view that there is no discrimination in the software industry? because that has been the opposite of my experience. I've seen women harassed daily, I know exactly where he's coming from. – Mark Rogers Jan 18 '12 at 05:39
  • @MarkRogers I am calling bullshit on his argument -- but only mean his argument doesn't prove his conclusion, not that his conclusion is wrong. His view, in any case, is that there *is* discrimination. – Sklivvz Jan 18 '12 at 08:54
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    @MarkRogers: fact, that sexual harassment is accepted in company you work for and company Fowler works for, does not prove that: a) it's wide spread attitude in IT industry b) that percentage of companies like yours is any higher in IT industry, than in any other industry. Nor extreme misogynist cases like Richard Stallman prove anything. After all, he is not hired by any IT company. – vartec Jan 18 '12 at 10:33
  • I've left that company a long time ago, but many of the companies I've worked for have hordes of young unmarried males with over-sized egos. They have a tendency to push whatever limits are available to them, including hitting on women. If there were more women in the industry, I think it wouldn't be a problem. But the truth is that there are hardly any women in CompSci and it has nothing to do with a woman's ability or talent. – Mark Rogers Jan 18 '12 at 16:05
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    @MarkRogers: you're suggesting that over-sized egos and hitting on women is more common in IT, than let say in sales department? And really I don't understand why you assume, that IT is the paramount of all professions and women would be inclined to choose it, if it wasn't for sexism. It is not, and there are few women in IT, simply because they choose other, more prestigious majors. – vartec Jan 18 '12 at 22:13
  • @vartec - "simply because they choose other, more prestigious majors". What? – Mark Rogers Jan 19 '12 at 15:53
  • @MarkRogers: do you really believe that software development is the most prestigious work there is? – vartec Jan 20 '12 at 16:09
  • There are many factors that go into choosing one's new profession, assuming that women are simply choosing "other, more prestigious majors" sounds bizarrely optimistic to me. – Mark Rogers Jan 20 '12 at 16:12
  • @MarkRogers: given that the woman who actually decides to choose that major, is more likely to get job in the industry than man in same situation, how else would you explain 1:7 ration of choosing that career at age of 16? – vartec Jan 25 '12 at 16:08
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    @vartec - there is definitely a chicken and egg issue involved with computer science. The lack of women leads to a lack of women. But other industries have become more integrated over time, it's just sadly ironic that such a future leaning industry would be the one with the most (or near the most) gender bias. – Mark Rogers Jan 25 '12 at 16:20
  • @MarkRogers: srsly? Given that first computer programmer **ever** was Ada Lovelace? – vartec Jan 25 '12 at 16:24
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    @vartec - Referencing a female historic figure in the past does not mean there is equal work for equal pay or even equal opportunities today for most women. – Mark Rogers Jan 25 '12 at 16:32
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    @MarkRogers: of course opportunities are not equal, as you can clearly see from my answer, that women get **better** opportunities at getting a job in IT. On the other hand, I haven't seen any hard data supporting your stance. – vartec Jan 25 '12 at 16:45
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    Programming is one of the best jobs for someone on the autism spectrum, it pretty much removes the handicaps and may even make one better. Autism is 80% male. Thus you would expect a difference just from biology. Also, workplace discrimination can't explain the lack of students. Back in college I saw almost no women in programming classes--and while I won't say there were no competent ones I never got to know one that I didn't consider incompetent. – Loren Pechtel Feb 06 '18 at 01:11
  • @vartec: Agree. I came about a bunch of (newspaper) articles recently saying that programming was first a female-dominated profession before it became a male-dominated profession. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/06/345799830/the-forgotten-female-programmers-who-created-modern-tech says about the mid 1980s "But it was also just about this time that the number of women majoring in computer science began to drop, from close to 40 percent to around 17 percent now." so actually both chickens and eggs vanished. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing – cbeleites unhappy with SX Feb 11 '18 at 19:26

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According to Why So Few?: Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics by Catherine Hill, Ph. D., Christianne Corbett, and Andresse St. Rose, Ed.D., 2010:

Number of students who took advanced placement test in Computer Science AB:

  • girls — 632 (13%)
  • boys — 4,268 (87%)

enter image description here

Number of graduates with B.Sc. in computer science:

  • women — 7,944 (18.6%); including mathematics 14,771 (25%)
  • men — 34,652 (81.4%); including mathematics 43,376 (75%) enter image description here

Thus, "natural proportion" for newly hired software developers in US would based on available graduates be 82% male, 18% female. However, if you look at actual occupation statistics:

enter image description here

It has mathematics in same category as IT, but 30% is still lot more that 25% you'd expect from proportions of B.Sc. graduates. So if there is any bias in the IT industry, it's positive one, rather then negative one. Same goes for alleged bias in colleges, as you can see that percentage of women among graduates with B.Sc. in Computer Science (18%) is way higher, than percentage of girls among students taking Advanced Placement Test in Computer Science (13%).

Note, that the question is about discriminatory bias in IT industry hiring, not about society as a whole.

vartec
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    Nice finds. I'd make one comment on your last statement re. IT industry hiring... this data is probably difficult or impossible to find, but what we really need is a comparison of the % of men/women who *want/try* to work in IT vs. those who *actually* work in IT. I know a lot of friends who don't want to or can't find a job opening that would apply their major. Counting them in an analysis that tries to identify hiring bias would be incorrect (they've never been interviewed for hire). IT might not suffer from this problem, though... – Hendy Jan 17 '12 at 20:27
  • You say: "Note, that the question is about discriminatory bias in IT industry hiring, not about society as a whole." But the question is not necessarily focusing on IT industry hiring only, it could be referring to society as a whole. – Mark Rogers Jan 18 '12 at 05:34
  • @MarkRogers, uh, neither Fowler or I are making an argument for/against society. The argument *is* about the industry. – Sklivvz Jan 18 '12 at 09:16
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    @MarkRogers: Assumption is, that if someone studies to get B.Sc. in Computer Science, then his/her intention is to work in that field. I believe that's quite safe assumption to make. Now, perhaps some ppl can't find job opening, but then if it's harder to find opening for man, then for woman, that proves that there is no negative bias against women in the IT industry. – vartec Jan 18 '12 at 12:55
  • @Sklivvz - right, but the industry is not defined purely by hiring. What about women deciding to enter the industry? – Mark Rogers Jan 18 '12 at 16:06
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    @MarkRogers: from the data you can clearly see that the percentage grows with the age, not other way around. So basically you'd be saying that industry has huge impact on what someone of age 16 chooses. With which I totally disagree, if anyone has huge impact, it would be mass media creating stereotype of nerds. – vartec Jan 18 '12 at 16:30
  • People constantly change industries after college, the number of older college students was rising last I checked. Do you think a woman feels welcome in a virtually all-male industry? – Mark Rogers Jan 18 '12 at 16:47
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    @MarkRogers I am sure that a lot of unemployed women would *not* be so picky... – Sklivvz Jan 18 '12 at 16:58
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    @MarkRogers: how would you explain that the percentage of women working in IT industry is **higher** than percentage of women among CS graduates? From what you're trying to say, one would expect that percentage to be **lower**. – vartec Jan 18 '12 at 17:10
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    @Sklivvz - even unemployed women can be picky when they are presented with multiple paths to take. – Mark Rogers Jan 19 '12 at 15:53
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    Interesting, but it ignores that fact that because of factors that discourage women to go into IT, those that do go in will tend to be more motivated and more skilled than average. Therefore, in a neutral industry, we should expect more than the average number of comp sci graduates going into the field, as those who aren't serious will probably have already dropped out – Casebash Jan 30 '12 at 12:57
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    also seems to ignore the possibility of discrimination in industry leading to less women choosing to do the Bsc – bdsl May 04 '12 at 22:31
  • @bdsl: so you're basically saying that 13% is more than 18.6%? – vartec May 06 '12 at 13:02
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    Am I correct in thinking that study is based on the US only? In other areas of the world, programming is considered a female's job and males are the minority. For example, see [this](http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/latest-enrollment-numbers-at-qatar-university-big-gender-imbalance/) and [this](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/4203/1130) (stackprinter version found [here](http://www.stackprinter.com/export?question=3974&service=programmers.stackexchange) if you don't have 10k rep - its the 3rd answer down) – Rachel Sep 25 '12 at 19:05
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    @Rachel: study is US only, but the original controversy was namely about Silicon Valley. – vartec Sep 26 '12 at 07:34
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    I'm sorry but I have to say, having "math" bundled in to the category really truly breaks the entire value of the statistics you quote to answer this question. I'm surprised that on a site made for being skeptical an answer with such an obvious hole to be skeptical of was accepted... – Jimmy Hoffa Nov 28 '12 at 21:04
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    @vartec: Is the juxtaposition of CS B.Sc. graduates (where?) and "newly hired software developers in US" really meaningful? What about newly hired software developers who immigrated after graduating elsewhere? What about newly hired software developers who did not study, but learned their profession some other way (self-training, vocational school, ...)? Are those factors really negligible when looking at the U.S., or the Silicon Valley in particular? – O. R. Mapper Feb 06 '18 at 06:51
  • @Hendy there are no where near enough programmers to fill the need for then in the USA. In general if someone has any competence at all (and sadly even many who don't have any competence) they will be able to find a job with a CS major. – dsollen Feb 06 '18 at 15:31
  • It would have been nice to also look at the number of mathamatics and computer engineering graduates, as many of those that graduate with those degrees end up going into programming possisions. But I suspect the same trend would apply to both fields. I think It comes down to the fact that those women who are dedicated enough to make it through comp sci classes despite cultural trend against them generally will end up being more dedicated/better programmers, since attrition would remove those not dedicated to the field, then male counterparts that didn't face the same attrition rates. – dsollen Feb 06 '18 at 15:34