Why are women programmers much less than men? Infographic survey from "My Circle"

Among the 50 thousand users of “My Circle”, who indicated their main field of activity in their profile, 29 thousand belong to developers (backend, frontend, software development and mobile development). Of these, only 7% are women.

A year ago, a group of students conducted a study in which she studied more than 3 million sentences of edits to someone else’s code (pull request) on GitHub, and found that the code offered by women and men is approved with approximately equal probability in 75% of cases, and women, this figure is even a few percent higher than that of men.
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A reasonable question arises, why if women and men program equally well, the proportion of women in this area is so low? This suggests an obvious conclusion that this is most likely due to socio-cultural stereotypes relating programming to purely male work.

To deal with this, Anna Kameneva, a 4th year student at the Faculty of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University, a little more than a month ago, at Habré and My Circle, she conducted a survey among women programmers, in which she asked them to share their experience in development and professional socialization. In total, more than 800 questionnaires were collected, Anna processed them, visualized and commented. We publish part of her research.

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The survey was attended by those women for whom programming is the main profession. Most of them have experience of working in teams in companies of various sizes.

It is also noteworthy that the top 10 programming languages, which are most often used by women in their work, include approximately the same languages as in the IT industry as a whole . There are some exceptions, but this is a topic for a separate study.

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Those who noted that they have experience working in a team were asked to answer the question about the ratio of men and women among fellow developers. Every second woman noted that in the workplace, women developers are 3 times less than men, every fourth that 5-10 times less. And only every twelfth - that women and men equally. This gap can be traced in both small and large companies.



Approximately one in three respondents faced pressure due to their chosen profession. The most significant pressure factors indicated by women are pressure from colleagues and management (38% noted this factor) and from relatives and friends (34%). The most insignificant factors are pressure from teachers and teachers (8%) or their own internal pressure (4%).





Here are some examples of quotes from our respondents:

• Immersion in the profession led to isolation and divergence of interests with relatives , as a result, problems in communication. It took a couple of years to adapt.
  
  
• Family members categorically did not want to see me in programming because they did not have enough information about this field and, quite simply, they were afraid of the unknown. For this reason, they tried to force me to enter the law school .
  
  
• Yes, many acquaintances and relatives consider it a non-female profession and therefore, I take too much on myself, and the character undergoes deformation - the behavior is more like that of men .
  
  
• At the first job, several interviews were conducted for me, women were forbidden to wear skirts above the knee, colleagues looked condescending . Until I began to show good results.
  
  
• Many employers believed that girls did not know their profession very well and had to prove their qualifications in full or simply refused to work.
  
  
• The pressure was met solely from colleagues who are hurt that a female programmer. You also need to work several times harder so that the management could perceive you on a par with male programmers.
  
  
• At the university in my specialty there were 6 girls out of 31 people. Before graduation, I learned 3. At work, I was always the only girl programmer in the department. All my colleagues at the beginning, at each new place of work, projected upon me their experience of interacting with non-working wives, sisters, friends of creative professions. This attitude is always, one might say, humiliating and indulgent, as with a less intelligent person . During the first 2-3 months, this usually continued. It just needed to endure, so our patriarchal world is arranged. There was, of course, a lot of unpleasant communication at the interviews. Even invited somehow to look simple.
  
  
• Parents still do not agree with the choice of profession, they need to go to school as a teacher. At university, some teachers said in plain text that a bear can be taught to program, but a woman cannot .
  
  
• The pressure was internal. It was difficult to decide to choose this path, because it is a male profession . Although everything was easy for me, and I was always the best, there were always doubts inside that programming was not for me. But since I really liked it and I really wanted it, I decided to take a chance and now I am immensely happy.

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The majority of respondents for the first time became interested in programming from classes in educational institutions: schools, colleges, universities (38% noted this option). Every fifth noted that her interest in programming began with an acquaintance with a computer or with its purchase (21%). Every sixth became interested in programming after a personal acquaintance with programmers (18%), every eighth came up with vivid examples among relatives (13%).



The absolute majority of respondents (63%) came to programming by receiving higher education, a quarter (27%) were studying independently, 4% received vocational education at a secondary educational institution. 6% noted the option “Other”: here women marked the transition from related professions (tester, analyst, etc.), as well as receiving first a secondary specialized and then a higher specialized education.

The main determinants of interest in the profession are awareness of prospects, including material, such as high earnings, (64%), the attractiveness of a computer as a tool for work (61%) and the realization that this type of activity is easiest (35%) .

Every fourth respondent noted the specific features of the profession, as the reason for choosing this particular profession. Among such reasons are the opportunity to work remotely and go on maternity leave without prejudice to career growth, a high level of earnings, the ability to reduce communication with colleagues to a minimum, as well as the opportunity to work in the “men's team”.

12% of respondents said that they were attracted by the complexity of the profession, another 10% indicated their answer, for example, the opportunity to realize their creative potential, the continuous development of their professional field, and some responded that they did not initially have a special interest, it arose already in the process of professional activity.

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To summarize the above

By choosing the profession of a programmer, most girls approach through the awareness of all the prospects of a specialty, because the development industry is developing rapidly, and the labor market is interested in new specialists. In addition, on average in the market this profession is one of the highest paid.

For women, this profession has several advantages, such as the ability to work remotely, and therefore not being tied to one place, as well as the opportunity to go on maternity leave and continue working in their specialty.

Many girls note the great advantage of the development of the technology industry and the possibility of continuous improvement of skills. In spite of the fact that most women become programmers by obtaining higher specialized education, every fourth developer has entered programming through independent mastery of professional knowledge and skills.

Women, even being interested in this profession, sometimes lend themselves to internal and external pressure and enter other professions, but over time they return to the desired business, overcoming socially constructed barriers.

In both large and small IT companies, women are a minority. As girls point out, in society there really is an idea of ​​the programmer's profession as a “male” specialty, however, women often notice that this stereotype is mostly characteristic of the “older generation” and people who simply do not have sufficient information about the essential characteristics of the profession.

Most developers know about the existence of a gender gap in the profession, and are willing to admit that it really is, and is not a speculative invention. Also among the girls there are many who do not consider the gender gap a problem, and some sincerely admit that the community of male programmers is most pleased with their profession.

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All charts are prepared using the service infogr.am