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Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would s

Perhaps the lack of women in STEM is a first world phenomenon. In my third world undergraduate CS class, 10 years ago, there were 40 women and 20 men. I would say it even appeared to me that more women were in college than men.The few courses were I found less women than men were in Mechanical Engineering departments.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
China has similar, if not worse problems, as the USA. The lab I worked for in Beijing made lots of effort to attract female researchers, and it was still very lopsided.
- programmertote 9y ago
  From my graduate CS classes in the US, most women are from foreign countries. I notice the same in other US grad schools as well. From that, I am led to believe that women from developing nations (which kind of includes China) still choose STEM careers (most likely for practical purpose of making money).
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    There is a lot of selection bias in who comes to the USA to study and work. But also, in china, women don’t drop out of the field all together, but rather tend to move into less technical ones (e.g. PM), and are less likely to get the PhD needed to be a researcher. There are likewise cultural issues that make this hard (e.g. China’s leftover women problem). There has also been a lot less outreach compared to the west because communism was already supposed to have fixed these problems (this is changing of course), while the west has been perversely drawing away a lot of gender diversity at the high end with their current hiring practices. Perhaps India does a bit better? When I visited Microsoft research Bangalore, it seemed a bit more diverse than Microsoft research Beijing.
MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
It is. In countries where women have the freedom of choice due to political and economical circumstances, the gender imbalance is more pronounced. Basically, most women choose to not pursue engineering if they don't have to (unfortunately, I'm glad we have some women at the office).
- hamax 9y ago
  This is often repeated but the data is way more noisy than this comment implies. For example this chart for Asian countries does have Iran on one side and Japan on the other, but it also have Korea way higher than Japan and Cambodia way lower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/File:Proportion_of_female_graduates_A_Complex_Formula.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/Fi... In europe Norway has the fewest women in stem and Croatia the highest, but there are a lot of cases where the correlation isn't there. Hungary is very low and Luxembourg is very high. Ireland and Italy are high but Slovenia is low. https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/she_figures_2015-final.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/... Correlation definitely exists but there are a lot of other factors at play too.
  - MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
    Thanks for adding details. Heres some more studies I found interesting. I'm sorry if this list looks biased, its just what I could find. If anyone knows of (statistically sound) contradicting studies, please share! "Practically all psychological differences between men and women were LARGER in cultures with more gender egalitarianism." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijop.12265/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijop.12265/full "Women tend to shy away from career opportunities that explicitly make "brilliance" a condition." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117303098 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117... "Women prefer less risk and less competition, appear to prioritize equality over efficiency and report a greater willingness to share wealth." https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0713.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0713.html "Personality had greater impact on variance in income than sex, narcissistic men earning more, neurotic women less." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917305962 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917... "Women saw typical engineers & computer scientists as more extreme & stereotype-consistent, sabotaging themselves" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0763-x https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0763-x "The wage gap between men and women vanishes after controlling for so-called "reservation wages"." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300446 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117... "Women underestimate, while men overestimate their labor market prospects, leading to greater female job satisfaction" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300379 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117... "Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-016-9832-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-016-9832-z
Tehnix 9y ago
In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards STEM, but even then it varies. Take for example the first source[0], which only has a difference of 962 women to 1082 men accepted into the scientific faculty. At DTU[1] it varies more, although anything with Bio, Environment or Medicin in the name will be skewed more towards women. I guess my point is: why do we insist there is some inherent bias against someone in society, if there is not a 50/50 split (which would in itself be weird)? If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things. Disclaimer: I should probably say that the above of course only applies to Denmark, and I cannot talk on behalf of the situation in the US. [0]: http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-optagelse/optagelsesstatistik/2017/antal-optagne-fordelt-paa-koen/ http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-optagelse/optage... [1]: https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjG1siy7OvYAhUMb1AKHVneCQ0QFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtu.dk%2F-%2Fmedia%2FDTUdk%2FUddannelse%2Fnoegletal%2FProfil-af-en-aargang-BSc-og-BEng-2016.ashx%3Fla%3Dda&usg=AOvVaw3oCfhf7NgEdA7QyD_jvbSF https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd... [2]: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilling/ligestillingswebsite#2 https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilli... EDIT: Added source on first claim about more women being educated.
- xienze 9y ago
  > If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things. Because that would require people to acknowledge that the theory that everyone is a blank slate with equal capabilities and that any differences in outcome are as a result of some sort of systemic oppression might not be entirely correct.
  - eutectic 9y ago
    Equal capabilities and interests.
savanaly 9y ago
I've heard a theory for explaining that that goes like this: 1. choosing a career path you're not interested in can be considered a luxury 2. women tend to be less interested in computer science 3. people in the "first world" tend to have more luxuries of all sorts since they are wealthier 4. thus, percentage of women in STEM anti-correlates with GDP-per-capita

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

China has similar, if not worse problems, as the USA. The lab I worked for in Beijing made lots of effort to attract female researchers, and it was still very lopsided.

programmertote 9y ago
From my graduate CS classes in the US, most women are from foreign countries. I notice the same in other US grad schools as well. From that, I am led to believe that women from developing nations (which kind of includes China) still choose STEM careers (most likely for practical purpose of making money).
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  There is a lot of selection bias in who comes to the USA to study and work. But also, in china, women don’t drop out of the field all together, but rather tend to move into less technical ones (e.g. PM), and are less likely to get the PhD needed to be a researcher. There are likewise cultural issues that make this hard (e.g. China’s leftover women problem). There has also been a lot less outreach compared to the west because communism was already supposed to have fixed these problems (this is changing of course), while the west has been perversely drawing away a lot of gender diversity at the high end with their current hiring practices. Perhaps India does a bit better? When I visited Microsoft research Bangalore, it seemed a bit more diverse than Microsoft research Beijing.

MrBuddyCasino 9y ago

It is. In countries where women have the freedom of choice due to political and economical circumstances, the gender imbalance is more pronounced. Basically, most women choose to not pursue engineering if they don't have to (unfortunately, I'm glad we have some women at the office).

hamax 9y ago
This is often repeated but the data is way more noisy than this comment implies. For example this chart for Asian countries does have Iran on one side and Japan on the other, but it also have Korea way higher than Japan and Cambodia way lower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/File:Proportion_of_female_graduates_A_Complex_Formula.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM_fields#/media/Fi... In europe Norway has the fewest women in stem and Croatia the highest, but there are a lot of cases where the correlation isn't there. Hungary is very low and Luxembourg is very high. Ireland and Italy are high but Slovenia is low. https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/she_figures_2015-final.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/pdf/pub_gender_equality/... Correlation definitely exists but there are a lot of other factors at play too.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
  Thanks for adding details. Heres some more studies I found interesting. I'm sorry if this list looks biased, its just what I could find. If anyone knows of (statistically sound) contradicting studies, please share! "Practically all psychological differences between men and women were LARGER in cultures with more gender egalitarianism." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijop.12265/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijop.12265/full "Women tend to shy away from career opportunities that explicitly make "brilliance" a condition." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117303098 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117... "Women prefer less risk and less competition, appear to prioritize equality over efficiency and report a greater willingness to share wealth." https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0713.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0713.html "Personality had greater impact on variance in income than sex, narcissistic men earning more, neurotic women less." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917305962 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917... "Women saw typical engineers & computer scientists as more extreme & stereotype-consistent, sabotaging themselves" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0763-x https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0763-x "The wage gap between men and women vanishes after controlling for so-called "reservation wages"." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300446 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117... "Women underestimate, while men overestimate their labor market prospects, leading to greater female job satisfaction" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117300379 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268117... "Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-016-9832-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-016-9832-z

Tehnix 9y ago

In Denmark for example, which by all accounts is a first world country, the majority of educated people are actually women[2], and there is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from any social class or gender to take an education (it's free, heck even payed for), yet we still see women leaning more towards the humanities, social sciences and professions such as lawyer[0], than men. Men predominantly lean towards STEM, but even then it varies. Take for example the first source[0], which only has a difference of 962 women to 1082 men accepted into the scientific faculty. At DTU[1] it varies more, although anything with Bio, Environment or Medicin in the name will be skewed more towards women. I guess my point is: why do we insist there is some inherent bias against someone in society, if there is not a 50/50 split (which would in itself be weird)? If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things. Disclaimer: I should probably say that the above of course only applies to Denmark, and I cannot talk on behalf of the situation in the US. [0]: http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-optagelse/optagelsesstatistik/2017/antal-optagne-fordelt-paa-koen/ http://studier.ku.dk/bachelor/ansoegning-og-optagelse/optage... [1]: https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjG1siy7OvYAhUMb1AKHVneCQ0QFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtu.dk%2F-%2Fmedia%2FDTUdk%2FUddannelse%2Fnoegletal%2FProfil-af-en-aargang-BSc-og-BEng-2016.ashx%3Fla%3Dda&usg=AOvVaw3oCfhf7NgEdA7QyD_jvbSF https://www.google.dk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd... [2]: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilling/ligestillingswebsite#2 https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/levevilkaar/ligestilli... EDIT: Added source on first claim about more women being educated.

xienze 9y ago
> If given completely free choice, perhaps some people are just disposed to being in interested in different things. Because that would require people to acknowledge that the theory that everyone is a blank slate with equal capabilities and that any differences in outcome are as a result of some sort of systemic oppression might not be entirely correct.
- eutectic 9y ago
  Equal capabilities and interests.

savanaly 9y ago

I've heard a theory for explaining that that goes like this: 1. choosing a career path you're not interested in can be considered a luxury 2. women tend to be less interested in computer science 3. people in the "first world" tend to have more luxuries of all sorts since they are wealthier 4. thus, percentage of women in STEM anti-correlates with GDP-per-capita