Women in Computing To Decline To 22% by 2025, Study Warns (usatoday.com)

New research warns that at the rate we're going, the number of women in the computing workforce will decline to 22% from 24% by 2025 if nothing is done to encourage more of them to study computer science. From a USA Today report (shared by an anonymous reader): The research from Accenture and nonprofit group Girls Who Code says taking steps now to encourage more women to pursue a computer science education could triple the number of women in computing to 3.9 million in that same timeframe. Women account for 24% of computing jobs today, but could account for 39% by 2025, according to the report, Cracking the Gender Code. And greater numbers of women entering computer science could boost women's cumulative earnings by $299 billion and help the U.S. fill the growing demand for computing talent, said Julie Sweet, Accenture's group chief executive for North America.

Comments

Why?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

If women choose not to go into computing fields, why should they be forced (or even encouraged) to do so?

Why isn't there a similar push to get men into kindergarten education or nursing?

How about letting people pick the field(s) they want to go into without telling them what they "ought" to do based on a pointless metric or percentage?

Re: Oh noes!!!!11111

[saloomy]

I don't understand why they should be "encouraged" to study computer science to just keep up some random statistic vs. encouraging them to do whatever their hearts tell them they should be doing? Stories like this make me so angry because it casts women as unable to decide for themselves and we should be "correcting" their life choices. Whatever...

Let's be perfectly honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves. Most people suck at programming. Most people suck at just about anything they do. Programming is hardly a glamorous job. Most people are non-technical, illogical and irrational, especially when it comes to their pathetic attempts to do whatever "business" they are trying to get done. For the most part, the only reason they're still in business is because their customers are clueless and their competition is even less competent.

A better question: why are there so many men left in computing? If I wanted to have morons yapping nonsense at me all day I could turn on the TV - no need to go into work.

Garbage collection - less than 1% female

[hsthompson69]

http://amarillo.com/opinion/op...

Good paying jobs, and women just don't want them.

Re:as a layperson, im a little confused.

[serviscope_minor]

Its not racism --nobody was yelling bigoted obscenities-- but the managers in charge of lining up bonuses and promotions came from an ancient era where brown people were still some subset fraction of an actual person. the ones that got promoted didnt see much of a raise either

That is literally racism you are describing. Racism is more than yelling bigoted obscenities. Regarding non white people as not fully human and denying promotions and raises is racism.