Dynamics of Gender Bias within Computer Science

TL;DR

This study analyzes the evolution of women's research authorship in ACM SIGs from 1970 to 2000, revealing diverse gender representation trends and growth patterns that can inform targeted diversity reforms within computer science.

Contribution

It introduces a new dataset analyzing women's authorship across ACM SIGs over three decades, highlighting varied growth trajectories and disparities in gender representation.

Findings

Some SIGs had less than 10% women authors.

Other SIGs exceeded 40% women authors.

Most SIGs showed decelerating growth in women's authorship.

Abstract

A new dataset (N = 7,456) analyzes women's research authorship in the Association for Computing Machinery's founding 13 Special Interest Groups or SIGs, a proxy for computer science. ACM SIGs expanded during 1970-2000; each experienced increasing women's authorship. But diversity abounds. Several SIGs had fewer than 10% women authors while SIGUCCS (university computing centers) exceeded 40%. Three SIGs experienced accelerating growth in women's authorship; most, including a composite ACM, had decelerating growth. This research may encourage reform efforts, often focusing on general education or workforce factors (across the entity of "computer science"), to examine under-studied dynamics within computer science that shaped changes in women's participation.