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More or Less

The gender gap in tech

More or Less

BBC

News Commentary, Science, Mathematics, News

4.63.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are women really less likely than men to be hired for jobs in tech just because of their sex? A study claims that sexism in the recruitment process is holding women back from entering the tech sector. But the study is not all it seems. There are much better statistics that can help explain why fewer women than men work in tech in the USA and lessons to be learned from India, where there is a much smaller gender gap in the tech sector.

Presenter: Phoebe Keane

Photo: An engineer looking at information on a screen interface Credit: Metamorworks / Getty Images

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:09.9

Welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. I'm Phoebe Keane.

0:15.0

This week we're looking at the gender gap in the tech sector, thanks to this message from one of our listeners.

0:20.6

My name is Jetta and I'm a software developer at Morgan Stanley.

0:24.4

I recently read a really great article in the New York Times that talks about the hidden history of women and coding.

0:31.6

But once statistic in this article stood out, and this is it.

0:35.8

In a 2016 experiment conducted by the tech recruiting firms speak with a geek.

0:41.6

5,000 resumes with identical information were submitted to firms.

0:46.6

When identifying details removed from the resumes, 54% of the women received interview offers.

0:53.3

When gendered names and other biographical information were given, only 5% of them did.

0:59.2

It seemed astonishing at work where you have been trying really hard to encourage women to apply and to study computer science.

1:08.2

So I wondered if you can find out whether there are any reliable statistics about nameblind CVs, and in particular where this statistic about the 5,000 resumes came from.

1:20.6

Well, there is someone who's done just that.

1:23.0

Kelsey Piper is a journalist at Vox in the USA and says she was surprised by the study too.

1:29.4

There are a couple of things about that statistic that just don't make any sense.

1:33.4

So this recruiter said that they presented the same 5,000 candidates to the same group of employers twice.

1:41.3

The first time around, they provided background details.

1:44.8

You know the candidates names, they're experience, their history.

1:48.7

The second time around, they didn't provide names, experience, or background.

1:54.2

And that's just very strange.

1:57.0

One question that comes to mind is, why would any company reach out to a candidate if names, experience, and background were not provided?

2:05.1

What would they use to choose to interview that candidate?

...

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