4 ms·

In the current climate, I'd suggest approaching such data with a pinch of salt. Historically, computer work originated in Electrical Engineering field. Dedicate

by pacala 9y ago

In the current climate, I'd suggest approaching such data with a pinch of salt. Historically, computer work originated in Electrical Engineering field. Dedicated Computer Science departments appeared later on. It is entirely possible that focusing on "people with Computer Science degrees in the '70s" to give a skewed perspective of the period workplace demographics.

_emacsomancer_ 9y ago
There are a number of articles on this theme from 2014. Here's one: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...
- pacala 9y ago
  Pinch of salt. The data for electrical engineering is conspicuously missing. Furthermore, the article mentions two universities, Carnegie Mellon University and Johns Hopkins University. The CMU CS department was founded in 1988 [0] and JHU CS was founded in 1986 [1]. The article claims peak female ratio of enrollment in CS in 1984, before at least two prestigious CS departments were even founded. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_School_of_Computer_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_School_of_Comp... [1] https://www.facebook.com/pg/jhuengineering/about/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/jhuengineering/about/ Edit. The NPR article [2] links to the raw NSF data [3]. EE gender data for 1984: BS, M: 19,252 F: 2,289 MS, M: 5,081 F: 438 PhD, M: 579 F: 14 CS gender data for 1984: BS, M: 20,369 F: 12,066 MS, M: 4,379 F: 1,811 PhD, M: 258 F: 37 EE BS male enrollment drops from 19k in 1984 to 10k in 2010, while CS BS male enrollment increases from 20k in 1984 to 32k in 2010, as if part of highly male dominated EE departments, about 10k, changed affiliation to CS. We can also observe a decline in CS BS female enrollment, from 12k in 1984 [peaking at 15k in 1986, 2003, 2004] to 7k in 2010. Unclear what the causes are, but we can't dismiss the shifts in CS meaning itself that happens during this period. Alas, in the current climate, it is unlikely we can have an unbiased public analysis of this trend. [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... [3] https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=4266&id=2 https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=4...
  - _emacsomancer_ 9y ago
    > Alas, in the current climate, it is unlikely we can have an unbiased public analysis of this trend. Presumably, like most phenomena, it involves a variety of factors.

by pacala 9y ago

_emacsomancer_ 9y ago

There are a number of articles on this theme from 2014. Here's one: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

pacala 9y ago
Pinch of salt. The data for electrical engineering is conspicuously missing. Furthermore, the article mentions two universities, Carnegie Mellon University and Johns Hopkins University. The CMU CS department was founded in 1988 [0] and JHU CS was founded in 1986 [1]. The article claims peak female ratio of enrollment in CS in 1984, before at least two prestigious CS departments were even founded. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_School_of_Computer_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_School_of_Comp... [1] https://www.facebook.com/pg/jhuengineering/about/ https://www.facebook.com/pg/jhuengineering/about/ Edit. The NPR article [2] links to the raw NSF data [3]. EE gender data for 1984: BS, M: 19,252 F: 2,289 MS, M: 5,081 F: 438 PhD, M: 579 F: 14 CS gender data for 1984: BS, M: 20,369 F: 12,066 MS, M: 4,379 F: 1,811 PhD, M: 258 F: 37 EE BS male enrollment drops from 19k in 1984 to 10k in 2010, while CS BS male enrollment increases from 20k in 1984 to 32k in 2010, as if part of highly male dominated EE departments, about 10k, changed affiliation to CS. We can also observe a decline in CS BS female enrollment, from 12k in 1984 [peaking at 15k in 1986, 2003, 2004] to 7k in 2010. Unclear what the causes are, but we can't dismiss the shifts in CS meaning itself that happens during this period. Alas, in the current climate, it is unlikely we can have an unbiased public analysis of this trend. [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when... [3] https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=4266&id=2 https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/content.cfm?pub_id=4...
- _emacsomancer_ 9y ago
  > Alas, in the current climate, it is unlikely we can have an unbiased public analysis of this trend. Presumably, like most phenomena, it involves a variety of factors.