HackerEarth, India’s leading innovation management and talent assessment company today published a report titled ‘Women in Technology 2018 : Breaking Gender Barriers‘, exploring the state of female technologists across the globe and the challenges faced by them in the workplace.
The objective of the report is to raise awareness on the issue of biased recruitments and highlight the ways in which organizations can hire and retain more women in technology-based roles. HackerEarth surveyed over 1000 women from 35 countries holding technology positions in various organizations. 84% of the respondents are under 30 and belong to various ethnicities. Developers from Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America participated in the survey, where they were asked about their background, career, hiring experience and employee satisfaction.
Gender disparity in tech roles
The report shows stark disparity in the number of women employed by organizations of all sizes; only one-third of all tech teams comprise of women. Despite 86% of the respondents having a formal degree in computer science, majority of them believe there is a hiring bias for technology related roles, and there exist roles which are more challenging for women to enter.
The report also suggests that after a point, most women at these organizations experience a stagger in their career growth, with only 2% being promoted to leadership roles. 72% of the respondents are currently working as software developers and respondents with roles such as Product designers, QA developers, System Admins, and Engineering Managers were in the minority. Almost 80% of the women are working full-time or part-time, but 53% are seeking new roles, while only 11% said that they wouldn’t consider a new offer.
Factors contributing to high attrition rate amongst women developers
The data from the report shows that there is a high attrition rate among women developers in most companies. An interesting trend uncovered by the report, is that most respondents had an average tenure of only 0-2 years, while only 5.3% choose to stay at the same organization for more than 8 years.
HackerEarth has also created a job satisfaction index which shows that 48% of the respondents surveyed are satisfied to an extent in their current jobs. Almost 69% of the women stated that the reason they would consider moving to a new job is to work with emerging tech, 63% would choose a higher paycheck and almost 48% would move to a new job offering flexible hours.
Barrier to entry and challenges for minorities
HackerEarth also took ethnicity under consideration as women belonging to ethnic minorities found it even more challenging to get hired for the right jobs. 58.3% of the African American women and 43% of Hispanic women who responded to the survey, have identified unequal hiring practices as the key issue when it comes to gender disparity in tech roles.
Gendered wording in job adverts has also been identified as the main barrier for women to apply for jobs of their choice. 50% of the respondents believe that job adverts for technical roles tend to have gendered wording, which discouraged them from applying for the position. 62% of the respondents have also supported the claim that blind recruitments can improve technical hiring among women.
Factors encouraging women technologists to continue in their current roles
The report lists solutions to the issues faced by women in the field of technology. Factors which encourage women to continue their career in technology include growth opportunities, better work-life balance, opportunity to work on exciting new technologies, flexibility, better compensation and adequate training. Installing worker-friendly policies, child care services and flexible schedules can help women rise to better positions.
While only 19% of the respondents cite that their organizations were ‘not at all family-friendly’, more than 50% said that their organizations had some policies that are family oriented. 81% of the respondents also felt that their organizations valued their opinion and 71% responded that their employers provided adequate opportunities for women looking to rejoin the workforce after a long break.
In conclusion, there is still a long way to go to encourage more women to take up a career in technology. Practical solutions such as blind recruitments, building family-oriented policies, and up-skilling opportunities will help women excel in their careers and reduce gender disparity in every organization.
To download the full report, please visit here.