It’s time for the old adage that women neither like nor do well in math and science be put to rest … Women are increasingly involved in the tech field, both as consumers and as practitioners, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since over half of social media users are women and the average social gamer is a woman in her 40s.
This trend is also reflected in education. Of the computer science majors graduating in 2013 from Harvard, women make up 41%. And although only 25% of science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) jobs are currently held by women, the numbers are beginning to shift. Between January of 2011 and 2012, the number of women in the IT field jumped by more than 28%.
The benefits for women who enter tech are hard to deny. They experience smaller wage gaps due to gender than women in other industries. But the relationship between women and tech companies isn’t one-sided – the companies get some nice perks, too. Companies whose boards of directors contain 3 or more female members had higher returns on sales, returns on investments and returns on equity.
The infographic below delves deeper into how the phenomenon of women in tech is on the rise.
