DoI: 10.1145/1461928.1461947
in our field? In large part, out of self-interest. Diversity often leads to enhanced abilities to perform tasks, greater creativity, and better decisions and outcomes. 17 Sadly, bias and stereotyping—often unconscious, but nevertheless pervasive—continue to affect the gender and ethnic composition of our talent pool and thus limit the possibilities of technological innovation around the world. Meanwhile, demand for computer scientists and computer engineers in the U.S. is expected to grow 37% between 2006 and 2016, 4 despite the overall economy’s present travails. Clearly, society requires the contributions of women as well as men to computing.
“WoMen in coMPUting:
Where Are We Now?”—an
article by Maria Klawe and Nancy Leveson in
the January 1995 issue of Communications—
addressed women’s representation at the time,
as undergraduate and graduate students and in
the work force, in computing fields. That article,
part of the issue’s special section on Women and
Computing, described successful activities and
offered recommendations for future programs.
In this article, 14 years later, we assess the changes that have since occurred, including both positive and negative trends; we present strategies shown to be successful for the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in computing; and we explore promising new initiatives for further increasing women’s participation. While the 1995 article focused on the U.S. and Canada, as does the present one, we now also include data from other parts of the world.
Why should computing professionals be concerned about women and other groups underrepresented
Around the world, women have made some progress in the field of computing over the past decade. Women now play a heightened role in technology leadership, and they have gained representation at many important points in organizational hierarchies.
˲ The number of women earning U.S. undergraduate computer science (CS) degrees increased from 7,063 in 1995 to 11,235 in 2005.25
˲ Some countries are making gains in the numbers of women majoring in math or CS, but because data is often unavailable for computer science alone, related percentages are not exactly comparable to U.S. figures. Indeed, the percentage of U.S. female bachelor’s degree recipients in math is much higher than that of CS— 44.6% versus 22.2%. 25 Thus grouping math with CS may be masking lower participation in CS.
˲In Asia (including only those countries for which data is available), women earned 43% of first university degrees in math and CS in 2004.23 Women’s representation in technical fields is growing in India—the percentage of female engineers graduating from ITT Bombay has grown from 1.8% in 1972 to 8% in 2005. In the Middle East, women earned 43% of first-time math and CS degrees. 23 In
68 CommunICatIons of the aCm | feBRuaRY 2009 | vol. 52 | No. 2
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