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Children. Women leave tech jobs because children are more than a full time job and are more rewarding than twiddling bits around. If they have a husband that c

Children. Women leave tech jobs because children are more than a full time job and are more rewarding than twiddling bits around. If they have a husband that can provide for them they will stay out until the children move out. They will only start looking for work again then. So if you want to have an equal number of women in the work force be prepared to take on 40something and 50something women with a decades long gap in their career.

Mezzie 4y ago
I'm not sure. Childbirth and rearing is a concern for most women, statistically speaking, so if it were only about childbirth and rearing, we'd see about equal numbers of females dropping out of tech as we do females dropping out of other professions, but we don't see that. (If anything, I'd expect it's less of a factor in tech in the last two years because the main issue there has been the pandemic's effect on childcare, and swinging a remote or odd hours job is easier in tech.) We'd have to know where in the pipeline the women are leaving to investigate causality. Anecdotally, I ended up working on my own for most of my programming because while it was fine when I was a child (under the age of about 12 or 13), mostly single-sex spaces of adolescents (including college students) are REALLY hostile. Being a 16-22 year old female in a room full of 20 to 30 something males is REALLY uncomfortable and I felt literally endangered on some occasions. Adolescents are both insecure and new to their sexuality, which they take out on other people. It's gotten much better now that young men see me as old; they don't hate or resent me as much. I've seen similar dynamics with, for example, men who want to work with young children. There are some young women who really invested their sense of self into being the person who's good with kids, and someone of the opposite sex coming along and being just as good/interested in the topic makes their insecurity and nastiness flare. Teenage boys who want to be camp counselors, babysit, etc.
- noisy_boy 4y ago
  > If anything, I'd expect it's less of a factor in tech in the last two years because the main issue there has been the pandemic's effect on childcare, and swinging a remote or odd hours job is easier in tech. Actually I would consider it a bigger factor in tech because a typical tech role, say, of a developer, makes far more sustained intellectual demands than, say, an administrative position. Speaking for myself, even when I'm not working, the problem I'm trying to solve is almost always in the back of my mind. It takes a toll and managing that in parallel with childcare would be super difficult.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    This is a fair point. I wonder how common it is to be someone like me: I actually took up a part time retail job to help with my freelancing because zoning out and doing physical work helps me with intellectual problem solving sometimes. If more people work like you and need the undivided focus time, you'd be right that's a variable to consider.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  There's tech and then there's "tech". Tech is getting a phone call at 3am that production is down and your code is where the logger says the problem is at and you need to fix it _now_. Then there's "tech": https://www.tiktok.com/@natasha.badger https://www.tiktok.com/@natasha.badger The reason why people fall out of the first one is because you really have better things to do with your life. The reason why they fall out of the second is because it's bullshit and the people are there to be fired when something goes wrong and the gods of the market need blood to be appeased. You can't raise a child when you're in tech because your social life is secondary. There are a lot more women in "tech". I have no idea why.
  - f17 4y ago
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      Leave your personal bones to pick somewhere else. You've still got a dozen other social media sites with similar messages to explain, way before 'incels' became prominent.
    - dang 4y ago
      Would you please stop starting this whole thing up on HN again? It's not what this site is for, and we continue to ban such accounts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - johnny_b_g 4y ago
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    > There are a lot more women in "tech". Women are generally raised to be better at social manipulation than men, and in those roles, that's more of an advantage. Men are generally raised to be better at shutting up and suffering. That'd be my theory anyway.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  > if it were only about childbirth and rearing, we'd see about equal numbers of females dropping out of tech as we do females dropping out of other professions, but we don't see that Is that really the case? I don't have any experience in fields other than tech, but it seems to me that tech doesn't like long gaps in one's career, "cause it moves so quickly". Maybe other fields don't have as much of an issue with this?
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    The converse of that is that you CAN stay up to date on your own time and do tech projects when things come out/make open source contributions, etc. (dependent on specialty, of course). It's also decently easy to freelance or pick up side projects, whereas some other career fields it's very much a 'you're in or you're out' thing. Some other fields are much stricter in terms of what they'll accept for experience and/or a valid career path. Lawyers, doctors, etc. Academia's pretty punishing as well: Taking a break basically can mean adjunct hell for life depending on the discipline.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Tech is a high paying profession. Women tend to be hypergamous. Thus, their male partner will earn even more than their high paying professional self. This means that they often can drop out because the husband earns a fuck load. Women who work in other professions might still be hypergamous but because they’re not high paying professionals then they are not attracting very high paying professionals who can afford the SAHM lifestyle. It’s not really rocket science. If I see a manager then they’re paired with a director. If I see a senior IC then they’re paired with a manager or a staff+. It’s super common even in SV. I rarely see women in higher level/paid roles compared to their husband. At best - the woman will have a higher title but the husband still makes more.
prawn 4y ago
I don't know anyone who left the workforce after their first child and stayed out until their children were out of home. Most often, they started returning to work in the first year after the birth, and repeated the cycle for each child. Children would have an impact (on every job category), but I don't think it's as extreme as you say. Part-time roles would be a thing before talking about decade-long gaps, IMO.
jcranmer 4y ago
I'm not going to deny that looking after children is more than a full-time job, but your assertion applies that only women are going to be capable (or willing) to take on that burden. And when it comes to staying out until the children move out... I have not met anyone who paused their career that long. By age 5, your children are likely to be going to school almost every workday, which means you're going to be with them for equal amounts of time whether you're working or not.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  >but your assertion applies that only women are going to be capable (or willing) to take on that burden. We all know that's true. If we're going to be playing the 'but minority' game I can always play the nuclear option and ask for a definition of what a woman is. > By age 5, your children are likely to be going to school almost every workday, which means you're going to be with them for equal amounts of time whether you're working or not. Unless you're home schooling them. Something that the top performers in programming are wont to do since math and science education is abysmal even in private schools.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Something like 4% of all households homeschool, and most top performers in math and science are the product of school systems, not of homeschooling. Your pleadings are getting more special as your argument is pressed.

Mezzie 4y ago

I'm not sure. Childbirth and rearing is a concern for most women, statistically speaking, so if it were only about childbirth and rearing, we'd see about equal numbers of females dropping out of tech as we do females dropping out of other professions, but we don't see that. (If anything, I'd expect it's less of a factor in tech in the last two years because the main issue there has been the pandemic's effect on childcare, and swinging a remote or odd hours job is easier in tech.) We'd have to know where in the pipeline the women are leaving to investigate causality. Anecdotally, I ended up working on my own for most of my programming because while it was fine when I was a child (under the age of about 12 or 13), mostly single-sex spaces of adolescents (including college students) are REALLY hostile. Being a 16-22 year old female in a room full of 20 to 30 something males is REALLY uncomfortable and I felt literally endangered on some occasions. Adolescents are both insecure and new to their sexuality, which they take out on other people. It's gotten much better now that young men see me as old; they don't hate or resent me as much. I've seen similar dynamics with, for example, men who want to work with young children. There are some young women who really invested their sense of self into being the person who's good with kids, and someone of the opposite sex coming along and being just as good/interested in the topic makes their insecurity and nastiness flare. Teenage boys who want to be camp counselors, babysit, etc.

noisy_boy 4y ago
> If anything, I'd expect it's less of a factor in tech in the last two years because the main issue there has been the pandemic's effect on childcare, and swinging a remote or odd hours job is easier in tech. Actually I would consider it a bigger factor in tech because a typical tech role, say, of a developer, makes far more sustained intellectual demands than, say, an administrative position. Speaking for myself, even when I'm not working, the problem I'm trying to solve is almost always in the back of my mind. It takes a toll and managing that in parallel with childcare would be super difficult.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  This is a fair point. I wonder how common it is to be someone like me: I actually took up a part time retail job to help with my freelancing because zoning out and doing physical work helps me with intellectual problem solving sometimes. If more people work like you and need the undivided focus time, you'd be right that's a variable to consider.
thrown_22 4y ago
There's tech and then there's "tech". Tech is getting a phone call at 3am that production is down and your code is where the logger says the problem is at and you need to fix it _now_. Then there's "tech": https://www.tiktok.com/@natasha.badger https://www.tiktok.com/@natasha.badger The reason why people fall out of the first one is because you really have better things to do with your life. The reason why they fall out of the second is because it's bullshit and the people are there to be fired when something goes wrong and the gods of the market need blood to be appeased. You can't raise a child when you're in tech because your social life is secondary. There are a lot more women in "tech". I have no idea why.
- f17 4y ago
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    Leave your personal bones to pick somewhere else. You've still got a dozen other social media sites with similar messages to explain, way before 'incels' became prominent.
  - dang 4y ago
    Would you please stop starting this whole thing up on HN again? It's not what this site is for, and we continue to ban such accounts. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - johnny_b_g 4y ago
- Mezzie 4y ago
  > There are a lot more women in "tech". Women are generally raised to be better at social manipulation than men, and in those roles, that's more of an advantage. Men are generally raised to be better at shutting up and suffering. That'd be my theory anyway.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
> if it were only about childbirth and rearing, we'd see about equal numbers of females dropping out of tech as we do females dropping out of other professions, but we don't see that Is that really the case? I don't have any experience in fields other than tech, but it seems to me that tech doesn't like long gaps in one's career, "cause it moves so quickly". Maybe other fields don't have as much of an issue with this?
- Mezzie 4y ago
  The converse of that is that you CAN stay up to date on your own time and do tech projects when things come out/make open source contributions, etc. (dependent on specialty, of course). It's also decently easy to freelance or pick up side projects, whereas some other career fields it's very much a 'you're in or you're out' thing. Some other fields are much stricter in terms of what they'll accept for experience and/or a valid career path. Lawyers, doctors, etc. Academia's pretty punishing as well: Taking a break basically can mean adjunct hell for life depending on the discipline.
bradlys 4y ago
Tech is a high paying profession. Women tend to be hypergamous. Thus, their male partner will earn even more than their high paying professional self. This means that they often can drop out because the husband earns a fuck load. Women who work in other professions might still be hypergamous but because they’re not high paying professionals then they are not attracting very high paying professionals who can afford the SAHM lifestyle. It’s not really rocket science. If I see a manager then they’re paired with a director. If I see a senior IC then they’re paired with a manager or a staff+. It’s super common even in SV. I rarely see women in higher level/paid roles compared to their husband. At best - the woman will have a higher title but the husband still makes more.

prawn 4y ago

I don't know anyone who left the workforce after their first child and stayed out until their children were out of home. Most often, they started returning to work in the first year after the birth, and repeated the cycle for each child. Children would have an impact (on every job category), but I don't think it's as extreme as you say. Part-time roles would be a thing before talking about decade-long gaps, IMO.

jcranmer 4y ago

I'm not going to deny that looking after children is more than a full-time job, but your assertion applies that only women are going to be capable (or willing) to take on that burden. And when it comes to staying out until the children move out... I have not met anyone who paused their career that long. By age 5, your children are likely to be going to school almost every workday, which means you're going to be with them for equal amounts of time whether you're working or not.

thrown_22 4y ago
>but your assertion applies that only women are going to be capable (or willing) to take on that burden. We all know that's true. If we're going to be playing the 'but minority' game I can always play the nuclear option and ask for a definition of what a woman is. > By age 5, your children are likely to be going to school almost every workday, which means you're going to be with them for equal amounts of time whether you're working or not. Unless you're home schooling them. Something that the top performers in programming are wont to do since math and science education is abysmal even in private schools.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Something like 4% of all households homeschool, and most top performers in math and science are the product of school systems, not of homeschooling. Your pleadings are getting more special as your argument is pressed.