IT or Not IT? A Female View on Inhibiting and Promoting Factors in Young Women’s Decisions for a Career in IT

Despite efforts to increase the share of women in IT, women remain largely underrepresented in higher IT education as well as in the IT workplace. Yet, in order to address the shortage of IT professionals and to enlarge diversity in the workplace, increasing the proportion of women who choose a career in IT is both an economic and societal imperative. Understanding career choice as a biographical decision-making process—rather than a one-point-in-time decision—the present work systemizes factors that inhibit young women to choose an IT career along the different phases of the career choice process. Taking these factors into account, approaches to increase girls’ motivation for a career in IT are discussed. The findings indicate that a combination of different factors comes into play early in the process already when attitudes and self-concepts develop. A lack of experiences as well as gender attributions of girls’ competences and of the IT profession play a decisive role. A concerted effort from childhood to young adulthood is needed to eliminate both gender and IT-related stereotypes and to provide girls and young females with relevant IT experiences, thus increasing their motivation and enabling a career choice solely on the basis of their own abilities and preferences.