Communications of the ACM
Studies Expose Gender Bias in Tech Job Listings
Researchers have found gender bias in engineering and programming job listings that could discourage women from applying.
Credit: photologue_np
A series of five studies by researchers at the University of Waterloo and Duke University indicates there is a subtle gender bias in the way companies word job listings in fields such as engineering and programming, according to a paper recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper suggests that the language in the job listings could discourage many women from applying.
The researchers found that job listings for positions in engineering and other male-dominated fields used more masculine words, such as "leader," "competitive," and "dominant," while listings for female-dominated professionals did not contain those words. The researchers also found that the mere presence of masculine words in job listings made women less interested in applying.
Another reason for the imbalance is the historical lack of women being trained in the first place.
Women also may be more likely to leave male-dominated fields. Harvard University researchers recently found that 52 percent of women in science and technology end up leaving the field and never come back.
Analysts say these studies have far-reaching implications as the number of women graduating with science and engineering degrees increases.
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