CRA Bulletin

Computer science has the dubious distinction of being the only science field to see a fall in the share of its bachelor’s degrees granted to women between 1983 and 2002. Among all S&E fields tracked by the NSF, linguistics was the only other field to see its share of women drop– but it is a field where the majority of degrees (71 percent) are granted to women.

Between 1983 and 2002, the share of CS bachelor’s degrees awarded to women dropped from 36 to 27 percent. The number of female degree recipients grew by 50 percent in that period, and in 2002 numbered 13,504. Nevertheless, this was lower than the 15,126 degrees granted to women in 1986, during the last boom in degree production.

As mentioned before, the drop in women’s representation did not recover during the surge in bachelor’s degree production that occurred in the late 1990s. In fact, incoming Freshmen women’s interest in CS as a major has fallen for the past several years and is now at its lowest point since the late 1970s.

Degree data are available from the NSF’s S&E Indicators 2006 report (chapter 2), as well as Science and Engineering Degrees: 1966-2001. See also Interest in CS as a Major Drops Among Incoming Freshmen.