There is a substantial gap between the number of computer science degrees earned by women and men. Statistics do not seem to indicate that this gap is narrowing.
This quantatitive disparity will be examined in the following areas:
Since the early 1980's, women have earned a larger number of bachelor's degrees than men. By 1996, women earned 55% of all bachelor's degrees in the United States, according to statistics from the National Science Foundation.
In the science and engineering fields, men earn more degrees than women, but the gap between the number of degrees given to men and women has been decreasing. In 1986, women earned 130,662 bachelor's degrees in science and engineering fields compared to 204,743 to men, a difference of 74,081. Ten years later, men earned slightly fewer degrees, 203,341, while the number of women earning degrees in science and engineering fields rose to 181,333, a difference of 22,008.
This trend was not uniformly distributed in all science and engineering disciplines. Computer science bachelor's degrees up until 1996, the latest year for which national statistics are currently available, show a gender gap in computer science degree distribution that does not appear to be lessening.
Men earned 11,943 more bachelor's degrees than women in 1986. Despite changes in total enrollment, that number stayed relatively stable through the next ten years, and in 1996 it was 11,001.
| Year | Men | Women | Difference |
| 1986 | 15,126 | 27,069 | 11,943 |
| 1987 | 13,889 | 26,038 | 12,149 |
| 1988 | 11,353 | 23,543 | 12,190 |
| 1989 | 9,545 | 21,418 | 11,873 |
| 1990 | 8,374 | 19,321 | 10,947 |
| 1991 | 7,514 | 17,896 | 10,382 |
| 1992 | 7,210 | 17,748 | 10,538 |
| 1993 | 6,951 | 17,629 | 10,678 |
| 1994 | 7,020 | 17,533 | 10,513 |
| 1995 | 7,063 | 17,706 | 10,643 |
| 1996 | 6,772 | 17,773 | 11,001 |
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When examined in terms of percentages, the trend differences are clear. Overall, women and men earned about equal numbers of degrees in 1982, and the percentage to women has been steadily rising since then to 55.2% in 1996. In all science and engineering disciplines, the percentage of degrees earned by women has steadily risen to 47.1% in 1996. 1984 had the highest percentage of computer science bachelor's degrees earned by women, 37.2%. That percentage slowly declined to 27.6% in 1996.
At the graduate level, the gap is even wider, in terms of percentages, with the percentage of master's degrees earned by women in computer science at 26.9% in 1996, about the same as in 1982. This percentage has been nearly constant, at about 27% throughout the 1990's, contrasting the percentage of all science and engineering degrees, which have been steadily increasing from 32.3% in 1986 to almost 40% in 1996. The trend for master's degrees overall is much like bachelor's degrees, with women earning 50% in 1985, and then steadily increasing to 55.9% in 1996.
At the PhD level, the gap is even more pronounced, with women earning only 15.1% of Computer Science PhD's in 1996. However, there is a substantial drop in percentages between the master's and doctoral degrees not only in computer science, but in science and engineering disciplines as a whole, as well as for all degrees granted. This may indicate that the academic pipeline shrinkage for women in computer science, while certainly a reality, is not particularly worse than it is in other disciplines.
Although national data is not available past 1996, the Computer Research Associations's Taulbee Survey of PhD granting institutions can provide some insight into more recent developments.
This survey only covers PhD granting institutions, but it does indicate that the actual number of bachelor's degrees granted to women in the past few years has been increasing.
Although the sheer number of degrees earned by women has increased, the proportion has not, as the percentages indicate.
Nor does that situation seem likely to change any time soon based on current enrollment figures. Based on a survey of current undergraduate computer science enrollment, Camp in The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline Unlikely to Reverse states:
"Unfortunately, unlike the boom of CS students in the early 80's, which led to a large increase in the percentage of women in CS (see Figure 1), our predictions show only a nominal increase in the percentage of women in CS followed by another decrease."
The disparity in the number of degrees earned by men and women in computer science at Stanford is not particularly different from other universities. Compared to the results of the Taulbee survey, the percentages are not markedly different, but they do seem to indicate a positive trend. Whether this trend will continue, or is merely indicative of a short term increase, is not clear.
Despite the facts that for the past twenty years women have earned more bachelor's degrees than men overall, and that statistics indicate that the once large gap in degree distribution in science and engineering fields is closing, the gender gap in computer science has not decreased, nor does it show signs of decreasing. If we, as computer scientists in academia, want to see this situation change, we must take action.
Data was obtained from National Science Foundation, Computer Research Association, and the Stanford Computer Science Department.