Why aren’t there more women working in tech? For all the hiring pledges, networking initiatives and one-on-one mentoring programs, women hold 30% of tech jobs worldwide — even though they make up half the global population.
The implications of having a more representative workforce are straightforward: It can reduce unintended disparities and increase the prospect that the benefits of technology will be widely shared.
There’s another concern. Tech is expected to add workers at a faster rate than many other major job categories over the next eight years, suggesting that today’s mass layoffs are a temporary blip. If business leaders and policymakers don’t find ways to accelerate efforts to diversify the sector, then women — and other underrepresented groups — will continue to lose out on tech’s high-paying jobs.
Susan Athey, the Economics of Technology Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Researchopen in new window (SIEPR), and Emil Palikotopen in new window, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford GSB’s Golub Capital Social Impact Lab, think they have just the catalyst the sector needs to close the diversity gap.
