Why women are leaving the tech industry in droves

[Commentary] Women make up a tiny fraction, roughly 15%, of people working in technical roles in the tech industry. And amazingly, that percentage is dropping, not rising.

Multiple studies have found that the proportion of women in the tech workforce peaked in about 1989 and has been steadily dropping ever since. Surveys and focus groups find that women enter the tech world empowered by their credentials and filled with enthusiasm and ambition. In the early years of their careers, women self-report themselves to be ambitious and happy. But over time they get ground down. Most have very few female role models and colleagues. Surveys find 23% to 66% report experiencing sexual harassment or seeing it happen to others. Half the respondents to my survey said they've been treated in a way they find hostile, demeaning or condescending, and a third said their bosses are friendlier and more supportive with their male colleagues. Women report being encouraged to move out of pure tech into support functions, which offer less pay, are less prestigious and have limited upward mobility.

There's a war for talent in Silicon Valley, and engineers are tech's scarcest resource. If you're a tech executive, you want your available workforce to be as big and varied as possible. In that context a rational industry would shut down overt misogyny because in addition to being morally repugnant, it's terrible for business. It would aim to provide the same things for female workers that it does for male ones: an enjoyable culture, competitive pay and challenging work.

[Gardner is the former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation]