One of the recurring debates in the software development community is the lack of female software developers and the underlying reasons. Some of the arguments we've heard recently include:
- Working with computers is a "solitary" activity which attracts more men than women
- Females and males have abilities in different areas and it's only natural for certain jobs to be dominated by a particular gender.
- The male-dominated culture of software development teams is putting females off
However very rarely is any attempt to back up these arguments with hard data, which is unfortunate as when we look at the data it turns out none of these arguments hold true.
We're going to offer a data based analysis and look at the data tracking students from school level (age 14) to university in the UK to see where precisely the gender drop-off occurs.
To get onto a good Computer Science degree you generally need to have a strong grade at A-Level Maths (which students study between the ages of 16-18), and in order to study A-Level Maths you need to typically have grade A/A* at GCSE Maths (at age 14-16). The reason behind these requirements is that performance at Maths A-Level is the best indicator of performance at degree level Computer Science.
So let's have a look at the gender breakdown at each of these stages and also the data for Maths degrees which have similar requirements:
(Data shows gender breakdown for GCSE and A-Level for students getting A/A* grades)
So as is clearly visible far fewer females study Computer Science than Maths at either A-Level or degree level. So clearly it's not an issue of ability or a failure to meet the requirements to get onto the degree, but rather one of choice. Clearly at age 17 female students who are qualified to get onto a Computer Science course are choosing not to do so.
We can however see that this choice is being made even earlier if we look at A-Level choices between the genders:
At age 16 girls aren't choosing Computing, but they are choosing IT and Maths, so it's not the technology basis nor the theoretical basis that's putting off female students, but perhaps it could be the combination of the two. IT gives students immediate practical skills, while Maths gives students the theoretical basis needed for studying many other subjects. The theoretical basis of Computing on the other hand can come across as not having any practical applications.
It's also possible that Computing is considered too "high-risk", students who pick it have no idea if they're going to be good at it (as they've never had a chance to do it before) and don't want to risk getting a bad grade that will hurt their chances of getting into a good university. This risk would presumably be worth taking for students planning to study CS at university (i.e. predominantly males).
Why is gender equality important for software development?
Inevitably in these debates someone will ask "Why does it matter?" - we strongly believe it matters not only for the software development industry, but for society as whole.
There's a huge shortage of software developers in the UK, the number of software development roles is increasing by approximately 10,000/year. The UK just isn't producing enough talented software developers to meet the demand. When it comes to expanding the talent pool it makes sense to target the groups who are most under-represented.
But it is also an issue for society as whole. Having a 90:10 ratio of males to females for software development should be as shocking as having a 90:10 ratio for literacy. Software development is fast becoming one of the fundamental skills of the 21st century as technology starts to dominate every industry. Of the 26 billionaires the web has produced in the last decade, only one has been female. Only a tiny fraction of technology companies started today are started by female technologists. By neglecting female adoption we're creating the potential for huge disenfranchisement issues in the future.
How can we fix it?
Students by-and-large don't study Astronomy because their love of Dopplr shift equations, but rather because their love of space. Similarly we should make clearer the link between theoretical Computer Science and the practical side of web and mobile applications that many students use on a daily basis.
Movies like The Social Network are just as important as outreach programs, making that link part of societal knowledge. We need to project the image that Computer Science lets you build cool projects.
Introducing CS at any earlier age would help too, both with increasing interest and allowing students to try it without risking damaging their future career prospects. Last year saw the introduction of GCSE Computing which means students can now chose to study it at age 14. We won't see statistics on uptake for a couple of years but we can be hopeful that it will mean an increase in the number of female students studying the subject.