Women continue to face uphill battles in the tech industry on the back of years of mass tech layoffs and corporate rollbacks of DEI programs. Despite making up 42% of the overall labor workforce globally, women only represent 26 to 28% in tech, and 25% of STEM workers, according to data from WomenTech Network.
That’s an 8% rise in representation from 1970, but far from reaching parity 55 years later. STEM jobs are expected to grow more than 8% nationally by 2034, compared to just 2.7% for non-STEM jobs. Yet despite burgeoning opportunities in the field, the gender gap persists and equity in tech has flatlined in recent years.
Statistics from the following five facets of IT careers, from pursuing a degree to navigating the workplace environment, paint an alarming picture of the challenges women face in finding equal footing in IT.
1. Lack of representation in tech
Despite making public commitments to DEI over the years, representation of women continues to lag behind men at some of the biggest tech companies, according to data from WTN. Amazon reports the highest percentage of representation at 45%, followed by Meta (37%), Apple (35%), Google (34%), and Microsoft (32%), but continues to weaken further up the ladder as junior roles see the highest representation of female talent in the applicant pools, then drop off for mid-level, and again for senior-level jobs.
Software engineering jobs in particular show a drastic disparity, with around 25% fewer female applicants across junior and mid-level roles, and the numbers decline further for cross-functional senior-level roles like those in ERP and UI/UX design where there’s often 25% fewer female applicants.
At the management and C-level, women are more disproportionately underrepresented, holding around 24% of STEM managerial roles and just over 12% of C-suite positions, according to data from the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn. Further data from McKinsey show that in the past year, only 93 women were promoted to manager-level positions for every 100 men, and 74 women of color were promoted for every 100 men.
2. The degree gap
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that STEM occupations have grown 79% over the past three decades and are projected to increase another 11% by 2030. But the National Science Foundation finds that the gender gap in STEM fields continues to persist, even at the academic level.
Women make up around 21% of those earning a bachelor’s degree in computer and information sciences, 22% in engineering and engineering technology, 35% in economics, and 39% in physical sciences. Greater disparities exist for women of color, with Black women accounting for only 9% of those earning computer science degrees, and Hispanic women representing only 8% of master’s degree recipients in these fields.
When it comes to advanced degrees, only 30% of master’s degrees in engineering and computer sciences are awarded to women, dropping to 24% for doctoral degrees, according to Society of Women Engineers. And it’ll only become more difficult to foster gender diversity in the tech industry if colleges and universities don’t also look at the DEI of their STEM degree programs.
Of course, once a diploma is earned, the real work begins, and here the numbers for women in tech are even more troubling. Only 38% of women who majored in computer science are working in the field compared to 53% of men, according to the National Science Foundation. This is a consistent trend dubbed a leaky pipeline, where it’s difficult to retain women in STEM jobs once they’ve graduated with a STEM degree.
3. Retention issues
Women leave the tech industry at 45% higher rates than men, and 50% of women leave the tech industry by age 35 compared to only 20% for other industries, according to Accenture.
Despite being underrepresented in the industry, women are also disproportionately impacted by layoffs. In 2022, during the mass tech layoffs, just over 69% were female employees, based off a WTN study of nearly 5,000 profiles from over 50 companies. Women are 1.6 times more likely to face layoffs, and with so much instability for women in the industry, it’s no surprise that 57% of women in technology, media, and telecom (TMT) say they plan to leave their jobs within two years, pointing to poor work-life balances.
Between the increased likelihood of being laid off and still experiencing microaggressions at work, it’s growing increasingly difficult to recruit and retain women. In fact, the average tenure for women in tech is 3.1 years versus 4.2 years for men, according to BLS.
The WTN report also shows that 64% of women say they’ve been spoken over in meetings, 19% have felt pigeonholed by stereotypes of their gender, and 11% say they’ve been asked to supply the food during a meeting, despite the task being out of their job requirements. Other microaggressions include gendered language and being asked to take meeting minutes.
In addition, WTN found that 65% of tech recruiters also acknowledge bias in hiring, with 66% of women saying they lack clear career advancement paths in their companies. Although there have been consistent demands for DEI, the tech industry has failed to create a welcoming environment for women.
4. Sponsorship and mentorship gap
Sponsorship is one of the cornerstones of career progression, especially for those on the leadership track. But data from McKinsey’s 2025 Women in the Workplace report shows that women are sponsored less often than men. And even when they do have sponsors, women are still 15% less likely to be promoted as men with sponsors. Women of color face an even steeper battle in tech in that while only 25% of C-level leaders are women, only 5% of that is represented by BIPOC women.
Senior level members will be critical to help climb the ladder, but most leaders are inherently drawn to mentees and protégées who remind them of themselves. This creates an additional problem for underrepresented groups in any industry, as they don’t have as many leaders to look to for mentorship and sponsorship, or leaders who will naturally gravitate toward them.
This atmosphere also deters women from seeking promotions, especially if they don’t see a clear path to the support they’ll need to be successful at the role. McKinsey found that 84% of senior-level women want to be promoted compared to 92% of senior-level men, and those same women also say they were more likely to have already been passed over for a promotion and didn’t see a realistic path to the top.
McKinsey points out these stats culminate in a smaller pool of female candidates for higher-level positions, which makes it nearly impossible for them to ever catch up in terms of representation within these roles.
5. Pay gap
The pay gap between women and men continues to persist, with women earning nearly $15,000 less than men every year. The average annual salary for males in STEM is $85,000 compared to $60,828 for females, a number that drops down to $52,000 per year when isolated for Latina and Black women. Latina women earn, on average, nearly half of what the average, white, non-Hispanic man makes in the industry, so they’d have to work nearly two extra years to bridge the disparity in annual pay.
Women in tech and AI
Women are underrepresented in AI fields as well, making up around a quarter of the AI-related workforce, according to data from Deloitte. Globally, only 12% of AI researchers are women, and they currently hold around 16% of AI tenure-track faculty roles.
Entry and mid-level women are adopting AI slower (33%) than their male counterparts (44%), mostly due to concerns around ethics and young women reporting lower confidence (56%) surrounding AI skills compared to young men (74%). However, in an encouraging trend, senior-level women are adopting AI up to 16% faster than their male counterparts.
Deloitte also points to a trust gap between women and men when it comes to AI. Women are less likely to say that AI boosts their productivity (41%) compared to men (61%), and while women gain more trust of AI the more they get comfortable using AI tools, they start out with lower trust levels than men on average. Only 18% of women who say they were experimenting with AI indicate they had high or very high levels of trust for the technology, compared to 31% of men.
Data from the WEC and LinkedIn also show women are more likely to be employed in roles that will be disrupted, rather than augmented, by AI. In the US, 24% of men work in augmented occupations compared to just 20% of women. And women are more likely to work in positions being disrupted (34%) compared to men (25%). This of course leaves even more questions about the future of women in tech, as barriers continue to pop up that impact the industry’s ability to reach full gender equality.
This article was originally published on January 23, 2020, and updated on March 8, 2024.
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