Re:I’m a white guy in Silicon Valley and I’m done buying the...
by tzs on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @07:22PM
(#10156479)
His "it's not the pipeline" argument rests on 30% of STEM degrees going to women, but that is for all STEM degrees. In the degrees most relevant to Silicon Valley, engineering and computer science, it is 16%. The average is pulled up to 30% by much higher concentrations of women in physical sciences (40%), math and statistics (42%), and biology (58%).
16% of the engineering/CS degrees going to women lines up very nicely with the 15% he cites for the number of tech jobs in the Bay Area being held by women.
Many of the comparisons of Silicon Valley to national averages are comparing very different types of companies. For example, the comparison of executives is comparing to the S&P 100. I see no reason to expect that, say, a pharmaceutical company absent discrimination would be expected to have the same percentage of women executives as a computer software company absent discrimination. As his link on STEM degrees shows, women make up a considerably higher percentage of the degrees that would be of interest to a pharmaceutical company.
16% of the engineering/CS degrees going to women lines up very nicely with the 15% he cites for the number of tech jobs in the Bay Area being held by women.
Many of the comparisons of Silicon Valley to national averages are comparing very different types of companies. For example, the comparison of executives is comparing to the S&P 100. I see no reason to expect that, say, a pharmaceutical company absent discrimination would be expected to have the same percentage of women executives as a computer software company absent discrimination. As his link on STEM degrees shows, women make up a considerably higher percentage of the degrees that would be of interest to a pharmaceutical company.