Diversity in Computing
If you consider the strides taken throughout the United States and beyond in the last ten years to create a more inclusive, diverse society in all regards — from reducing the pay gap between men and women to providing equal opportunity to all individuals, regardless of background — you’d probably think that we’re on the right track. It has been and will continue to be a major discussion point. You might see a 54% increase in bachelor’s degrees awarded in engineering to women from 2011 to 2016 [1]. Or that 44% and 50% of bachelor’s degrees in biomedical and environmental engineering, respectively, were awarded to women from 2016–2017 [1,2]. From this data, you might think that we’re approaching a state of equality.
Not quite the case, and definitely not in computer science — Yes, the population of minority groups in engineering has certainly developed over the past decade. Yet, these developments are in stark contrast with the current state of computer science. Today, women account for 56% of all enrolled college students [3]. However, only 16% of all computer science bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women. You might now be thinking, “perhaps women don’t make up a large portion of the total general STEM population, not specific to computer science.” You’d be right — they don’t. Women account for only 21.3% of the total engineering degrees awarded (but that’s a whole other issue). This 16% is still 5.3% lower than what an equal distribution of women in engineering would make up [3]. Here, we can see that computer science trends towards the bottom of the spectrum.
Additionally, despite making up 50.8% of the total United States population, women represent a mere 20.3% of employed computer programmers. How do other minority groups fare? You probably guessed it: not so great. African Americans represent 13.4% of the total population, but only 8.5% of the computer programming occupational population. An even sharper contrast comes when considering the Hispanic or Latino population in computing. Making up 18.3% of the United States population, Hispanic or Latino individuals constitute only 8.7% of the computing workforce. It’s not all bleak though; one source of positivity in minority representation can be found in the Asian American population, making up only 5.9% of the total United States population, but 21.8% of the computer programming workforce[4].
This divide in percentages is certainly not the only problem at hand. Below we see that the actual interest for computer science by women had an increase parallel to that of other fields that women, for the most part, flourish in today. Yet the interest in computer science has only dropped throughout the years. How can we make a field grow more if interest in it isn’t growing to begin with?
We’ve seen that these radical divides exist, and we’ve established that the field of computing as a whole is nowhere near equilibrium. In fact, we saw that it’s moving away from it.
How did we get here? We should be well aware that the history of the United States is not one full of equal opportunity for all individuals, regardless of race and gender. The divide we continue to see within our society is one ingrained from times of ignorance and lack of education. For instance, the exclusion of women in computing dates to the origins of computers themselves, at the time when personal computers began to appear in the average household. During this period, personal computers were marketed nearly exclusively to men, while families were vastly more likely to purchase computers for boys rather than girls [5]. The discrepancies in today’s numbers are reflections of darker periods in human history.
How can we fix it? We’ve seen programs in place to achieve success in optimizing opportunity for all minority groups in terms of college acceptance, employment, breadth of reach to minority groups, etc, such as affirmative action programs and the Equal Employment Opportunity program. Fortunately, programs also exist within computer science to enhance the representation of minority groups.
One program, the African American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS) program “aims to broaden the participation of African Americans from historically Black colleges and universities in the computing sciences at the faculty and research scientist levels,” serving as a model to be incorporated at a large scale in a broad expanse of institutions to further the incorporation of underrepresented groups. To do so, the AARCS program initiates three components, a targeted presentation discussing graduate school and computing research at historically black colleges for undergraduates, a future research scientist mentoring program for African American graduate students, and an annual AARCS mini-conference. Serving as a model for the development of other programs of the like, the AARCS program represents the body of change needed to reinvent the numbers behind the computing population. This model primarily boils down to spreading a general awareness of the potential within the field to all members of society, as well as sharing with them the resources to work towards this potential [6].
Another program, the BRAID initiative, launched in partnership with 15 universities’ computer science departments across the nation. The goal of this initiative is to increase the participation of students from underrepresented groups — racial/ethnic minorities and women — in undergraduate CS programs. To achieve these goals, BRAID schools implement the following commitments: modify introductory CS classes to be more appealing to underrepresented students, lead outreach programs for high school teachers and students to build a diverse pipeline, build confidence and community among underrepresented students, and develop and promote joint majors in areas like CS and biology that are attractive to underrepresented students. The BRAID program has seen success in many of their partnered schools. For example women majoring in computing has grown by 35%, 16%, and 14% in Harvey Mudd College, University of British Columbia, and the University of Washington, respectively, from 2006–2016 [7].
Thus, the overall message should be clear: be active, get involved, and spread the word. Representation in computing can only grow in parallel with an awareness of the possibilities within the field. Ways to enhance interest in computing within underrepresented groups, according to the IEEE, include:[8]
- Raising awareness at the high school level: Outreach programs at universities to local high schools to speak about the potential in computing can be a good way to raise awareness and recruit. Additionally, free materials for hands-on computing activities for students can be offered, such as Computer Science-in-a-Box and Outreach-in-a-Box.
- Recruiting and Retaining at the University Level: Universities can recruit students from within their own university who may not have had the opportunity to evaluate what exactly computing entails.
- Reforming the workplace: Workplaces can actively recruit women and minorities as interns, implement policies to reflect growth, and improve their ability to retain women and minorities within their respective companies.
References
1. Yoder, Brian L. “Engineering by the Numbers.” Engineering by the Numbers, 2017,
2. Rincon, Roberta. “SWE Research Update: Women in Engineering By the Numbers.” All Together, 1 Oct. 2018, alltogether.swe.org/2018/09/swe-research-update-women-in-engineering-by-the-numbers/.
3. “Digest of Education Statistics, 2016.” National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of Education, 2016, nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_303.70.asp.
4. “Employed Persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 22 Jan. 2020, www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm.
5. Henn, Steve. “When Women Stopped Coding.” NPR, NPR, 21 Oct. 2014, www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding.
6. Jackson, J., Charleston, L., Gilbert, J., & Seals, C. (2013). Changing Attitudes About Computing Science at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Benefits of an Intervention Program Designed for Undergraduates. Journal of African American Studies, 17(2), 162–173. Retrieved February 19, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/43525454
7. “BRAID: A Diversity Program.” AnitaB.org, anitab.org/braid-building-recruiting-and-inclusion-for-diversity/.
8. W. M. DuBow, “Diversity in Computing: Why It Matters and How Organizations Can Achieve It,” in Computer, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 24–29, March 2013.
