Is there still a gender gap in the 21st century?

Of course, there is.

But on the bright side - it’s getting smaller!

And that’s why we decided to make women in tech our topic of the day!

How many women working in STEM professions can you name?

Keep reading and you’ll see that technology is not so male-dominated nowadays than it used to be.

Women in tech statistics say that the number of women doing STEM jobs is increasing every year, but it’s still a male playground.

Let’s warm up with some stats before we go deeper: 

Women in the STEM stats (Editor’s Choice)

  • Women own less than 10% of startups in the world.
  • Women in the tech industry earn 29% less than their male counterparts.
  • Three out of four girls express an interest in computer science.
  • One out of four jobs held by women in the IT industry, says women in technology statistics 2019.
  • In the last 40 years, almost 90% of all information technology licenses were made by male-only teams. Less than 2% of tech teams included women. 
  • 20% of engineering graduates are women and only 11 % of working engineers are women.
  • Netflix is one of the companies that really work on gender equality  - 47 % of the employees are women.

How does the male to female ratio in the tech industry look like?

How many times did you hear - the tech world is a man's world? Is it because women own one-tenth of all startup companies in the world? Or because women earn less than men working in the same position in the same company? On the other hand, according to GitHub codes that were written by women are accepted four % more than the one written by a man?

According to diversity in tech statistics 2018 STEM still is a men’s world. Why do young girls stop being interested in coding and programming so early? Why don’t they pursue their careers after graduating from some of the engineering colleges?

Some of the statistics that follow might explain what and when is stopping women from educating themselves in the STEM industry.

1. One-third of women older than 35 are still in junior positions.

While the %age of female software engineers grows every year, it looks like the IT company owners still have a long run ahead of them in order to bring gender quality to the software development society. Research show females of any age, are more likely to take junior-level roles for a long time.

HackerRank examined 14,616 developers for this study. The research included 1,981 women and 12,635 men. But it is not all that bad for women out there. Women in tech stats claim that more than 60 % of women said they know Java, JavaScript, and C programming languages. More than 40 % declared they understood + and Python and all of these program languages are well paid. 

2. Almost 14 % of women between the age of 18 and 24 started coding when they were under 16 years old.

Just for comparison, developers older than 35 are twice as likely to have tried coding before the age of 16.  This is a great gap, but it gets smaller than in the former generations. Part of the gender gap in technology statistics shows that meaningful resources have been put into developing programs such as Galvanize.

What happens with little girl's interests in computer science and technology that takes away their desire and interest to learn technology and computer science? 

3. GitHub: Code provided by females was accepted 78.6 % of the time — 4 % more than code written by men.

Research made by GitHub explained that simply identifying the gender of a programmer modifies how those in charge see the quality of work and success. Research showed that women's codes are more frequently accepted by the project managers, this works only if the gender of the programmer stays a secret.

Yes, you read it well, male to female ratio in the tech industry 2018 suggests that women in some cases are coding better, but only if no one reveals their gender.  

4. Ladies working in the computer and mathematical disciplines make 80 cents to the dollar that men gain for the same job.

This is nowadays fact - women are earning around $300 dollars a week less and about $16 000 dollars a year less than men for the same job, says women in technology statistics 2019. Some of the main reasons might be that women are asking for a lower salary than men in the first place and the company owners are paying what their employees ask for.

5. Businesses led by women have performed three times better than those with male executives

Technology is no different and this trend is true for startups as well. Prosperous companies have more female seniors than the less successful ones. And yet, more than half of women in tech earn less than men in the same position, sometimes even in the same company. 

6. Almost half of the tech educated women with children leave their job.

The %age of women in computer science is largely determined by their motherly role, researches show.  Females are (still) facing sexism in the workplace and unfriendliness to family planning and pregnancy, according to the same research. This will largely affect women interested in technology when it comes to making a choice whether to start a job in this industry or not.  

7. In 2016 Almost 20 % of CS graduates at big universities were female.

Should we say that almost 20 % (18 to be precise) graduates in CS are female is great number or just the beginning if we have in mind that 40 years ago almost 40 % of all CS undergraduates were women? Even the 40 % is almost half of the girls keen on the coding - what happens to them along the way? Women in tech statistics say that it looks like there are not enough role models for them to stay persistent.

Speaking of… 

8. The first computer was invented by a team of men and women.

Four remarkable women participated in making the coding and hacking industry.

Doesn't ring a bell? Well, maybe you should try to remember their names - they were smart and interested in STEM almost two centuries ago and they followed their dreams no matter what.

These are really remarkable examples of women in technology.

The first computer programmer was a woman in 1815. “The Analytical Engine” was invented when she was only 26 years old and her name was Ada Lovelace.

The World has heard about Alan Turing, the genius broke the Nazi's code and helped UK win World War II. One of the big contributors was Joan Clarke - a mathematician that attended Cambridge. She could never graduate what so ever because only men could graduate from university at the time. Joan was the only female part of the team of eight that was recruited in order to break the Enigma Code. She is one of the greatest code-breakers history remembers - what a contribution of women in technology.

Admiral Grace Hopper was a programmer and navy admiral in the first half of the 20th century. With a Ph.D. in mathematics, she was a professor at Yale until the US Navy started accepting women as volunteers. Hopper was working at Harvard until the end of the war when she was part of the team that developed one of the first computers made for commercial use in the United States. When she decided she contributed enough when it comes to women representation in tech she went back to the Army where she worked until the age of 85. 

9. Two women lead one of the biggest STEM companies - Facebook and IBM.

Two hundred years ago Ada Lovelace was passionate enough to do what no other human being did - computer programing. After her, we saw examples of women fighting in what seems to be men's world, not being able to graduate, being paid much less than their teammates... Women in tech statistics estimate that women are conquering STEM fields even when it comes to executive levels.

Sheryl Sandberg is the Chief Operation Officer (COO) of Facebook and Ginni Rometty is the president and CEO of IBM. Rometty is constantly encouraging women not to let anyone define who they are and what they could become. By her own words, growth and comfort never exist at the same time and that is the time when women can learn the most - when they feel threatened. And who knows - maybe her words can affect the %age of women in technology grow in the years to come?

10. Women own less than 10% of startups in the world.

In research that included more than 350 startups was found that companies that were established by women have twice bigger revenue (per dollar invested). These companies are expanding times faster than all businesses. In the past 10 years, these corporations grew almost twice in terms of revenue. This means there is no logical explanation of the low %age of women in tech.

11. Learned technical helplessness might be the answer.

Have you ever seen a boy and a girl trying to solve a math or coding problem? Did that end by boy taking away the keyboard from the girl? If this happened to the same girl more than a few times, she might never want to try to solve the problem ever again - that is learned technical helplessness and that might be one of the answers when it comes to the question of why women give up coding and programming so soon. This is why the %age of female programmers in 2018 was just 25.

12. In the UK, each year, 100 000 new jobs will be created in technology - 14% of them will be women.

That is fewer women than two years ago. Fewer and fewer women are going into technology degrees, dropping to less than 9%, which will lead to fewer women in tech. How can society improve women in technology statistics? Some research says that society doesn't know enough about women's position in the tech industry. 

13. The share of women in cyber code security is 14%.

Women in the field blame a stereotype of a hacker - a guy wearing a hoody in a basement. New York University is trying to learn girls they can hack too. Women think that all cybersecurity teams have to be very diverse now - because of the different perspective girls can give. If New York University succeeds in this project, it could significantly upgrade women in technology statistics 2019.  

14. Females in Europe are interested in STEM around age 11 and lose interest by the age of 15.

Girls of that age lose interest in everything - someone would say. And yes, girl's interest in other sciences drops at the same time but rebounds quickly.

This data shows that society has only a few years to cherish a girl's affection for STEM before they give up for good. In order to make better women in technology statistics, teachers should popularize popular women in STEM - this way girls could imagine their own path in tech. 

In Conclusion

Women throughout history have shown that they are extremely useful in tech science. But, women are still facing some very concerning facts -  one-fifth of all STEM jobs are held by women, only 5% of startup leaders are females and the %age of women in tech 2019, for now, is one-fourth.

Younger than 21, interested in tech and coding before their sweet 16th - this year will be the first year when Gen Z goes to work. These are the girls that had coding programs in schools - they are digital natives. All they need are good mentors, great role models and equal work opportunities with male coworkers.