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Are we really serious about having women in IT?

Associate Professor Julie Fisher, Information Age

18/06/2003 16:43:18

Recently a colleague told a story: She had been given a gift voucher for a beauty treatment, and in the process of having her nails beautified she fell into conversation with the young woman performing the service. It turned out she had completed an IT qualification from a leading Melbourne University and then began her IT career with a major international IT company. So why was she working as a beautician?

Her experience working in the industry had not been good. Despite a good salary and the other perks that come with the job she had she decided quit, to leave the industry and was now working as a pedicurist while putting herself through " Beauty School" .

A sad story of lost years, wasted potential and crushed expectations. But it's not unusual.

What is it about our industry that initially attracts women to study and obtain an IT qualification only to then leave disillusioned? Essentially this woman had found her workplace too difficult, and her work colleagues - predominantly male - were very technical, introverted "geeky and nerdy" (her words). Of course men become disillusioned with IT as a career as well, but if women generally feel this way - and there's evidence they do - we will continue to be in the position we are today. There are with few women entering IT courses, and even fewer going on to work in the industry.

In the words of my colleague: "No matter how you look at it, the IT industry is failing to attract and retain women, and the situation is getting worse."

It is nearly 50 years since Grace Hopper helped define Cobol, and we have always known that the IT profession is a different proposition for women compared with men. We also know the broad reasons women are generally reluctant to enter the profession:

• There is the inevitable "nerd" factor, particularly an issue for young girls making career choices in secondary school.
• Secondary school girls also have a stereotypical view of IT: typical reasons girls give for not wanting to do IT are that it's technically oriented, you need maths, and you don't interact with people. "It's boring".
• It is recognised as a predominantly male profession - in fact most of the IT teachers in schools are male.

Why would women with an IT qualification leave?

So, what is it about IT that is unattractive to women, particularly Western, English-speaking, women? There are other branches of science where women are well represented, so it cannot be because of the technical nature of the work. It is not "dirty" work in the sense of the trades (we see few female plumbers or electricians, too).

If someone has completed a three or four degree program in any area we can reasonably assume that they have liked what they studied and are comfortable with their chosen career path. The statistics, however, tell us that women are entering IT courses, completing them, but then not going on to join, or not stay in the IT workforce.

Other countries have attracted women to IT in greater numbers than we have been able to. For example: 37 per cent of programmers and analysts in Brazil, 40 per cent of applications software technicians in Germany, 28 per cent of systems analysts in Finland are women. There is also evidence that in other countries, women are more attracted to IT courses. For instance, Portugal, Italy and Sweden have intakes of over 30 per cent women to their IT courses. However the UK and North America have similar participation rates by women to Australia.

Data on comparative gender income in the IT Industry also gives us some insights. Even adjusting for the higher percentage of women who work part-time there is still a significant disparity between the pay rates of men in the IT industry and women undertaking the same work. Some examples: a male Information technology manager could expect to earn an average weekly income of $1500, a female by comparison can expect to earn about 10 per cent less. A male IT sales representative will take home $1000 per week, his female counterparts about 20 per cent less. A woman working as a systems manager earns approximately $836 per week; a male in the same position earns $1108 per week.

It's hard to imagine that women are on average more junior, or less expert, in these roles. More likely the data suggests the entrenched gender bias of the male dominated Industry.

I was recently approached by a young IT-qualified woman who wanted some idea of what would be a comparable salary for her level of work, experience and skills. She had been in the workforce for three years; had been given quite a high level of responsibility by her manager, and yet was being paid less than $35,000 a year. The work was primarily software development, and she was leading a small team. She approached me because she was planning to talk to her manager about her pay. Her situation concerned me because she seemed to be performing at least as well as the others in her team and yet was paid significantly less. I am confident that she will get her pay rise - the risk for the organisation is that if she doesn't, then she will leave.

Another woman was not so fortunate. Although she had the qualifications and experience, when a promotion came up, her boss was overheard to say: "if I give this position to a girl, all hell will break loose amongst the guys, and it's not worth the trouble. We will train someone else for it." He clearly acknowledged she had the skills and would not need to be trained, but promoting a woman was too much of a risk. She has since left the organisation.

Does it matter?

Are we losing out because we are not including women on our teams? I think we are. Look at the skills women bring to a team: women generally have better people and communication skills, women work very well in collaborative environments, they tend to be less competitive (not always a good thing for women in terms of promotion, but is very valuable in a team environment). The female influence can help modify male behaviour, and women also bring strong organisational skills.

A senior female IT professional, with teenage boys, brings a different attitude to the negotiating table when dealing with hard-nosed software vendors "I've heard all the excuses and I don't believe any of them", is her approach. Anyone who has raised boys, managed a household and has a successful career is likely to be a formidable negotiator.

The IT Industry is changing

We are currently seeing an Industry downturn but there are also underlying changes happening in the industry. The work performed by IT professionals today has less emphasis on software development, and more on the delivery of packaged solutions - commoditised solutions out-of-the-box. The base IT labour tasks, including programming are becoming a price driven commodity, in a global market, which is leading to IT solutions being taken offshore to low-cost labour countries, following trends set by textiles, general manufacturing and IT hardware Industries. There is also little demand in Australia for hardware development specialists, and the "nerd" skills are less in demand today.

There is a chance that your software today has been written by female programmers in India or eastern Europe, or soon, China.

In the face of these changes the role today for IT companies and IT project teams is more customer facing, ensuring business needs are met, talking to business customers, understanding what the customers are thinking. What business customers want are low-cost software solutions that work, that are functional, effective and usable, and they don't care about the underlying complexity of the system.

The skills that are needed are communication and collaboration skills, business process analysis, writing business requirement specifications, sorting and presenting information. I believe the skills women have are needed in the IT industry today to a greater extent than ever beforeWe are in a Catch-22. The image of the industry does not attract girls to study IT at secondary school and therefore few go on to study at the tertiary level. With women making up less than 25 per cent of IT graduates there are fewer available to employ. We cannot hope to increase participation in the workforce if we cannot increase participation in IT courses.

What can we do about the current situation? My suggestions are:

• Obviously we, the IT profession, need to "sell" the profession to women in a more effective way, and this can start with ACS and Information Age. The motivation for writing this piece came about because in glancing through back editions of Information Age I could not help but notice the lack of female representation. Women were writing for Information Age but rarely were they photographed or featured, and generally the graphics predominantly feature men.
• We need to promote what women are currently doing in the profession-strong role models are important for young women. We need to get the message out there that the skills women have are valued and important for IT teams.
• The image of the profession needs to change. We have to promote more aggressively that IT is more than a profession for young men wanting to spend all their time in front of a machine. That there are many IT careers that are interesting, exciting and people-focused that women would enjoy.
• We need to examine the workplace cultures and behaviours and make sure they support and value collaborative work styles, and do not drive away important skills.
• When hiring staff employers need to think more broadly about the skills they need. If people facing communications skills are involved, women tend to have those skills.

A young female graduate who, although she was considered inexperienced in the technical aspects of the job, was hired because of her strong communication skills. She was told "we can train you on the technical stuff". The message is that the technical skills are easier to train people with - communication skills are far more difficult to acquire.

What can the ACS do? For a start, let's acknowledge there's an Industry issue, and let's take a proactive stance. As our professional body the ACS should be leading the way, promoting and acknowledging the contribution of women. This starts with simple messages: ensuring photographs of women are included in publications and graphics also feature women. Invite more women. Women should also be more regularly invited to contribute to Information Age and to present and participate in ACS activities.

Are you managing an IT team? If you are, have you considered the diversity and capabilities within your team and the team's ability to meet your customers' needs and to meet the changing needs of the IT industry? Here's some questions to ask yourself:

1. What's the team culture? Is your workplace really inclusive of all types of people?

2. Do you have the correct balance of technical and collaborative capability? What do your customers think?

3. Are the communication skills of all team members good enough?

4. The last time you hired staff, did your selection criteria or preconceptions prevent your hiring a suitable, qualified/experienced woman?

5. Do you pay the same for the same level of skills, experience and education? For both men and women?

Over the last 12 years I have spent much time in researching women in IT and working with others to develop programs that encourage girls to enter tertiary IT courses, help them successfully complete those courses and make the transition to the workforce. This has not been easy and more work has to be done.

The low participation rate of women in the IT Industry should be of concern to everyone. A healthy, happy and productive workplace is one where there is diversity and balance and where the different skills people have are valued. Women can bring a different way of thinking, different skills and a different approach to a work place. This diversity is good for business.

If we are to have in the ACS a thriving and effective professional body, representative of all members, it concerns me that the image being presented, albeit unintentional, is of an industry where there is little place for women. This is something we all need to take responsibility for if we are serious about encouraging and supporting all members.

Some facts: The most recent (2001) ABS census data show that:the overall participation rate of women in IT courses was 23 per cent and 24 per cent in 1999 and 2000; Roughly 1 in 4.in 2001 30 per cent of the workforce with an IT qualification were women, this represents a decrease of 6 per cent since 1996 ;between 1996 and 2001 the number of people in the IT workforce with an IT qualification increased by 70 per cent;overall we saw an increase of 52 per cent , between 1996 and 2001, in the number of people working in the industry yet women's participation rate decreased by 2.3 per cent during this time.

The ABS data also gives us a picture of the fields of IT where women are most likely to stay. The participation rate is increasing for women in area such as: Computing Professionals (very broad non specific ABS category), Software Designers, System Managers and Information Technology Managers. However areas where women's participation is declining included Computing Support Technicians, (where there was a nearly 12 per cent decline), Applications and Analyst Programmers, and Computer Systems Auditors.

La Trobe study shows fewer women in ICT

A 10-year program to attract and retain women to tertiary IT education in Australia has done little to improve the position of women in the IT industry - in fact the situation has actually become worse.

That's according to a new study conducted at La Trobe University, Bendigo which shows the number of women with IT qualifications and those working in IT occupations across Australia has further declined.

It also shows women are paid significantly less than their male counterparts in similar IT occupations and are less likely to hold senior management positions.

Dr Graeme Byrne and Ms Lorraine Staehr of the School of Business & Technology at La Trobe University, Bendigo conducted the study entitled, "The Participation and Remuneration of Women in the Australian IT Industry: An exploration of recent census data".

Staehr said it was more than 10 years since the Federal Government had published its discussion paper, '"Fair Chance for All" which resulted in financial support for universities to encourage more young women into undergraduate IT degrees. The objective was to achieve 40 per cent female participation in IT and other non-traditional courses.

"This study set out to examine how successful the programs have been in attracting and retaining women to the IT field by utilising Australian Bureau of Statistics employment information from the 1996 and 2001 census."

Ms Staehr said the data revealed a negative picture and pointed to the need for an intensified effort to rectify the situation.

According to 2001 census data, 30.1 per cent of those with a post-secondary qualification in the IT area were women, representing a decrease of 6 per cent compared with data in 1996.

She said this was alarming given that the total number of men and women with IT qualifications increased by 70 per cent between 1996 and 2001.

"This decline indicates a significant worsening of the trend away from IT education /industry by women. Despite efforts to attract women to IT courses, the study found the number of women in IT degrees in Australia in 1999 and 2000 was around 24 per cent - nowhere near the objective of 40 per cent.

"During the same period, women's participation rate in IT occupations decreased by 2.3 per cent.

"No matter how you look at, the IT industry is failing to attract and retain women, and the situation is getting worse," Staehr said.

The study revealed the majority of women are concentrated in the lower income occupations of the IT sector.

Median incomes of women are below those of men in the same IT occupations. This disparity is worrying and is only partly explained by the greater degree of part-time work by women. Another worrying aspect is the concentration of women in the lower paid IT occupations with the participation rate of women being much lower in the higher paid IT occupations.

The industrial categories that attract the highest number of women IT professionals are health and community services, personnel and other services, finance and industry, agriculture, forestry and fishing, and government administration and defence.

However the industry with the highest number of employees (property and business services) has one of the lowest female participation rates at 20.8 per cent.

Overall, the participation rate of women in the IT industry is 23.6 per cent which is less than half the rate of all other industry sectors.

Staehr said the study indicated that few women had made inroads into management roles in IT.

While there are some encouraging signs with small rises (between 1 - 2.7 per cent) in the number of women taking on roles as computing professionals, software designers, systems managers and information technology managers, all other occupation groups within IT exhibited either no change or a decline in women's participation between 1996 and 2001.

"Overall, there was a 2.3 per cent decrease in women's participation in IT occupations in the 5-year period to 2001, the worst situation being for computing support technicians where a 11.7 per cent decline occurred."

Clearly, women IT managers, professionals and technicians are grossly under-represented. So while many professions such as medicine and law have been successful in attracting women in at least equal numbers to men, the IT profession has a long way to go."

Staehr said it is clear that much work needs to be done if women are to participate and develop financial rewards commensurate with men in the Australian IT industry.

"Misconceptions about the nature of IT work, male-dominated workplaces, and the fact that the nature of IT work makes it difficult to balance work and home responsibilities have been cited as possible reasons for low participation rates of women.

"The study indicates that more research is needed to find ways of overcoming the issues and impediments for women in taking up IT education and occupations," Ms Staehr said.

Julie Fisher is an Associate Professor at the School of Information Management and Systems, Monash University.