Why do women pick IT as a career ?
There's lots of waffle about why there are so few women in IT, but would like to look at it objectively in a forthcoming article...
Facts:
I observe that IT pays better than most jobs and that there are a good number of vacancies.
IT rarely requires physical strength and in fact most IT work does not even require you to be able bodied.
The % of women that leave IT completely in any given year is far higher than can be explained by having children or retirement.
So which of the following factors apply and in what proportion ?
Women for some reason just don't like computers
The subset of women who chose IT careers doesn't intersect the set of women who would enjoy it all that much.
There exists some pool of good jobs that women discover after starting work that attract them away.
And of course sexism
I have to say up front that I don't buy sexism at all even slightly. Having worked in manufacturing, retail and the media, I have to say that IT departments seem far less sexist. Though I accept the possibility that women leave IT because of sexism and then take careers in healthcare or retail which are massively worse, but can't go back. But I don't care about them, I would like to know why so many women leave IT.