Environmental influences on gender in the IT workforce

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the underrepresentation of women within the IT profession, one promising line of investigation is the influence of factors in the socio-cultural environment. In order to examine this topic, we draw on data from a multi-year field study of women IT professionals in three regions of the U.S.: Massachusetts, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We employ Trauth's (2000) conceptual framework of environmental influences on the development of a region's information economy to consider economic and cultural influences on women's recruitment and retention in the IT field. The findings reveal a range of influences and a wide variety of responses to them. The contribution of this research to theoretical understanding is twofold. First, we demonstrate that socio-cultural factors serve as both barriers to and facilitators of women's recruitment and retention in the IT profession. This suggests the need for investigations of not just women themselves, but also of the societal environments within which they grow up, live and work. Second, we demonstrate that there is not one unilateral set of environment factors that can explain women's under-representation. Rather, a combination of differing regional influences and individual responses to them is in evidence. This finding of variability both among environmental influences and among women's responses to them provides empirical support for ongoing theory development efforts regarding the role of individual differences in explaining women's under-representation in IT.

Improving the retention of women in the IT workforce: An investigation of gender diversity interventions in the USA

“…In their work related to organizational interventions, Trauth and her colleagues Trauth et al, 2009;Trauth, Quesenberry, & Yeo, 2008) used an individual differences model to account for the diversity of women's experiences in IT. The authors posited that socio-cultural influences operate on an individual level to shape how women experience and respond to barriers.…”

“…Trauth et al (2009) identified specific intervention strategies to address the barriers of work-life balance, lack of mentoring, and organizational climate. Trauth et al (2008) revealed women's own methods to address barriers and preserve their personal agency. More recently, revealed the importance of leadership and management support, as well as equitable policies regarding pay and evaluation, in creating flexible interventions to meet the diversity of needs among IT women.…”

“…Scholars have recognized the different nature of IT work and culture compared to other types of professional work (Armstrong et al, 2007;Panteli, Stack, Atkinson, & Ramsay, 1999) and its range of effects on individual women (Trauth, 2002). Studies exploring social structures focused on the shaping of the IT occupation as masculine and the implications of such gendered, and often essentialist, categorization on the culture of IT and IT women (eg, Harvey, 1997;Tapia, 2006;Trauth et al, 2008;Wilson, 2004). This research posited that the socially constructed and gendered nature of IT introduces "barriers" experienced by women in the IT workplace.…”

Understanding underrepresentation in IT through intersectionality

“…The theory chosen to inform this research is the Individual Differences Theory of Gender and IT because it provides the conceptual tools to examine variation in perceptions about the IT field [36] [37] [45]. The original application of this theory was to explain withinfemale variation in the influence of individual, institutional and societal factors on female participation in the IT field [42] [44] [46]. Because of its focus on within-gender variation due to individual and group effects, this theory has also been used to explore within-gender variation resulting from the intersectionality of gender and other identity characteristics such as race.…”

Theoretical approaches to gender and IT: examining some Australian evidence

“…Trauth et al . (2008b) analysed data on female IT professionals in three US regions to find that two environmental factors, economy and culture, influenced female participation in the IT workforce.…”