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> The study of more than 4,000 UK IT professionals, published to mark International Women’s Day, reveals women typically reach management level three years fast

> The study of more than 4,000 UK IT professionals, published to mark International Women’s Day, reveals women typically reach management level three years faster than men (in nine rather than 12 years) and they are appointed CTO/CIO two and a half years faster (in 13 versus 15.5 years for men). > However, the survey also reveals a colossal gap between the numbers of men and women working in top IT roles. Of the senior developers who responded to the survey, only 6% were women; with IT managers the figure was 8%, and of those heading up IT only 7% were female. These statistics are weird together. How can this be? Speculation: There is a bias against average/underperforming women relative to men entering and staying in tech. This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the distribution. It's as if you took a normal distribution (as skill often is distributed) and truncated some segment of the lower half. This would explain why there are much fewer women reaching managerial positions but why the ones that do reach it do so very quickly. Is there any data on how qualified and performant female engineers are relative to male engineers who occupy the same position? A result that would support this hypothesis would be something like women in the same position as men in tech have beefier academic credentials or more awards.

tajen 10y ago
I've had 2 examples around me where the woman was incompetent in programming and she was promoted because she was better with Excel spreadsheets. Plus the prejudice that men are supposed to be worse at communication than women, so managers promote women. It's sad because it reinforces the mistake where women are allowed to be incompetent, whereas we should keep them in a programmer job until they gain skills, like young men do, instead of promoting them too quickly. As opposed to the article, I witnessed a mean-time-to-promotion to the job of Team Lead of 3 years for women instead of 7 years for males – but that could be because the article considers "management" as a higher job than Team Lead.
CapitalistCartr 10y ago
Maybe women are, on average, treated worse at university and entry-level, so the majority that continue aren't a random distribution but predominately represent those more determined and aggressive.
- danharaj 10y ago
  Well yes, there could be such a bias at every stage in the development of an IT career and this would skew the skill/ambition distribution of female engineers towards the high end. I know plenty of male engineers who, to put it nicely, are underperformers. All of the female engineers I know, and there are much fewer of them, are what I would call exceptional engineers. Because I know so many more male software engineers, I still know more exceptional male engineers than female. However anecdotes don't matter for scientific inference which is why I asked if anyone had such data.
gnarbarian 10y ago
That's one explanation that fits a narrative. (and ignores the fact there are far fewer women who even attempt to enter the tech industry). The gender gap in tech starts with children, is seen in STEM enrollment rates and continues in the job market where a multitude of diversity initiatives exist to promote underrepresented groups in tech. So, an alternative speculation for the abnormally high promotion rate for women is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better (via diversity initiatives). There is a great documentary examining actual science on the subject and interviewing both scientific researchers and social scientists on opposite sides of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 Should we attempt to combat the gender gap in the nursing industry with the same vigor that we are focused on tech? How about the gender gap we see with garbage workers or psychology? edit: clarity.
- danharaj 10y ago
  Every explanation """fits a narrative""", including your alternative.
  - gnarbarian 10y ago
    Your explanation requires significant mental gymnastics to make your claim fit the data. If anything the data implies the opposite conclusion. If women were discriminated against in tech they would not be promoted at twice the rate. Wouldn't you also blame discrimination had this study revealed women were promoted at half the rate of men?
- Programmatic 10y ago
  >> This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the distribution. > Another explanation is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better. Those aren't even mutually exclusive explanations. It seems likely that both are true as the people that go into it despite the lack of interest from the rest of their cadre will be better candidates vs. borderline candidates.
heisenbit 10y ago
Easy to explain. Field is male dominated. Women enter and the ones that enter raise faster than men. One can speculate whether there is a promotion bias or the ones that enter have an above average pioneering spirit but... ...it takes time and experience to raise to the top. And not that many women have 15+ years relevant tech experience. The only mystery is why journalist not see that. In any case it is good to see some hard data at least on the engineering and first management level dispelling the myth that women are discriminated against.
- dismantlethesun 10y ago
  I'd suspect both. Women in tech are more closely scrutinized out of the sheer virtual of being a novel demographic within a company. Upon close scrutiny it is discovered that these women are actually amazing practitioners, because all the women who were on the wrong side of the bell curve dropped out under their close scrutiny experienced in high school or university. Thus women are promoted faster. It's survivor bias. Most people have a 'spotlight effect' in that they believe they are noticed more than they really are, but for a woman in tech it might actually be true.

tajen 10y ago

I've had 2 examples around me where the woman was incompetent in programming and she was promoted because she was better with Excel spreadsheets. Plus the prejudice that men are supposed to be worse at communication than women, so managers promote women. It's sad because it reinforces the mistake where women are allowed to be incompetent, whereas we should keep them in a programmer job until they gain skills, like young men do, instead of promoting them too quickly. As opposed to the article, I witnessed a mean-time-to-promotion to the job of Team Lead of 3 years for women instead of 7 years for males – but that could be because the article considers "management" as a higher job than Team Lead.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago

Maybe women are, on average, treated worse at university and entry-level, so the majority that continue aren't a random distribution but predominately represent those more determined and aggressive.

danharaj 10y ago
Well yes, there could be such a bias at every stage in the development of an IT career and this would skew the skill/ambition distribution of female engineers towards the high end. I know plenty of male engineers who, to put it nicely, are underperformers. All of the female engineers I know, and there are much fewer of them, are what I would call exceptional engineers. Because I know so many more male software engineers, I still know more exceptional male engineers than female. However anecdotes don't matter for scientific inference which is why I asked if anyone had such data.

gnarbarian 10y ago

That's one explanation that fits a narrative. (and ignores the fact there are far fewer women who even attempt to enter the tech industry). The gender gap in tech starts with children, is seen in STEM enrollment rates and continues in the job market where a multitude of diversity initiatives exist to promote underrepresented groups in tech. So, an alternative speculation for the abnormally high promotion rate for women is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better (via diversity initiatives). There is a great documentary examining actual science on the subject and interviewing both scientific researchers and social scientists on opposite sides of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70 Should we attempt to combat the gender gap in the nursing industry with the same vigor that we are focused on tech? How about the gender gap we see with garbage workers or psychology? edit: clarity.

danharaj 10y ago
Every explanation """fits a narrative""", including your alternative.
- gnarbarian 10y ago
  Your explanation requires significant mental gymnastics to make your claim fit the data. If anything the data implies the opposite conclusion. If women were discriminated against in tech they would not be promoted at twice the rate. Wouldn't you also blame discrimination had this study revealed women were promoted at half the rate of men?
Programmatic 10y ago
>> This means that the women who do stay in are from the upper end of the distribution. > Another explanation is there are fewer women interested in IT in the first place and companies are scrambling to compete for women because it makes them look better. Those aren't even mutually exclusive explanations. It seems likely that both are true as the people that go into it despite the lack of interest from the rest of their cadre will be better candidates vs. borderline candidates.

heisenbit 10y ago

Easy to explain. Field is male dominated. Women enter and the ones that enter raise faster than men. One can speculate whether there is a promotion bias or the ones that enter have an above average pioneering spirit but... ...it takes time and experience to raise to the top. And not that many women have 15+ years relevant tech experience. The only mystery is why journalist not see that. In any case it is good to see some hard data at least on the engineering and first management level dispelling the myth that women are discriminated against.

dismantlethesun 10y ago
I'd suspect both. Women in tech are more closely scrutinized out of the sheer virtual of being a novel demographic within a company. Upon close scrutiny it is discovered that these women are actually amazing practitioners, because all the women who were on the wrong side of the bell curve dropped out under their close scrutiny experienced in high school or university. Thus women are promoted faster. It's survivor bias. Most people have a 'spotlight effect' in that they believe they are noticed more than they really are, but for a woman in tech it might actually be true.