Job rate for women in tech stubbornly low for two decades, study finds

It’s all talk, it seems. Despite the effort to increase diversity and inclusion in tech, the share of women in the industry has barely moved up over the past two decades, according to a new analysis.

A report from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency administering and enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, says that women made up 22.6% of workers in high-tech roles in 2022.

That’s far less than the 47.3% share women had in the total American workforce. Just as importantly, the number is similar to the 22% of women represented in the high tech industry back in 2005.

Women were even more underrepresented in higher-paying high tech jobs within the sector (19.4%).

“Such stasis for women in the high tech workforce over such a long period of time is striking in light of high female labor force participation in the total US workforce (47.3% in 2022),” the EEOC said.

The high tech workforce is defined by the EEOC as consisting of workers in 56 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations regardless of industry.

In general, “women are more likely to experience sex-based discrimination, including harassment, when working in occupations and in a sector that is dominated by men,” the EEOC says in the report. Women also continue to experience barriers to entry and promotion in high tech occupations.

For example, the EEOC entered into a consent decree in 2021 with Dell, a computer manufacturer, after the EEOC’s investigation found that the employer paid a female information technology analyst with 24 years of experience less than her male counterparts for performing similar work.

The EEOC has also filed several pregnancy discrimination suits against employers in the high tech sector.

In the settled lawsuit between the EEOC and DLS Engineering, the employer rescinded a job offer for an engineering logistics analyst position when it found out the candidate was pregnant, explaining that they “cannot hire someone who is pregnant.”

“Sixty years after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there is a high degree of underrepresentation and a disturbing lack of career advancement for female, Black, and Hispanic workers in the high tech workforce, despite the recent period of growth in high tech occupations,” said EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows.

“America’s high tech sector, which leads the world in crafting technologies of the future, should not have a workforce that looks like the past.”

The annual 2023 State of Gender Equity report, a global survey of women and their experiences in the tech workplace, also found that although progress has been made overall, there is still a long way to go when it comes to females enduring bias in this male-dominated field.