Communications of the ACM
Women in Computing to Decline to 22% By 2025, Study Warns
If more girls are not encouraged to study computer science, the number of women in the computing workforce will decline over the next decade, according to new research.
Credit: Eric Risberg/AP
New research warns that at the rate we're going, the number of women in the computing workforce will decline to 22% from 24% by 2025 if nothing is done to encourage more of them to study computer science.
The research from Accenture and nonprofit group Girls Who Code says taking steps now to encourage more women to pursue a computer science education could triple the number of women in computing to 3.9 million in that same timeframe.
Women account for 24% of computing jobs today, but could account for 39% by 2025, according to the report, Cracking the Gender Code. And greater numbers of women entering computer science could boost women's cumulative earnings by $299 billion and help the U.S. fill the growing demand for computing talent, said Julie Sweet, Accenture's group chief executive for North America.
"The solution starts with education — we need to develop more tailored programs that appeal to girls’ interests, and take a more targeted and sequenced approach to encourage girls to pursue (computer science) related learning at each stage of their education," Sweet said.
From USA Today
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