Educators, other groups working to close the gap between men and women in technology

Although women remain a minority in many science-, engineering-, math- and technology-based fields, efforts are being made throughout the United States to increase their numbers.

In 2013, women ages 25 to 34 were 21 percent more likely than men to be college graduates and 48 percent more likely to have gone to graduate school, according to a report by the presidential Council of Economic Advisors. But even though women are the majority when it comes to having an undergraduate or graduate degree, they still make up only 25 percent of the technology industry's workforce today.

Dr. Sophia Scott, associate dean in the College of Science, Technology and Agriculture at Southeast Missouri State University, says she has seen more growth in her field in the past five years.

"More women are going into higher education, so even if you just look at the numbers, more than 50 percent of universities in general are women, and so because there's more women, you would think there'd be more women into some of the technical fields," Scott says. "… Right now at Southeast Missouri State University, we have about 57 percent female, and so we have seen the growth in the College of Science, Technology and Agriculture where the STEM fields are, which is science, technology, engineering and math."

Although the number of women involved in STEM fields is slowly growing, Scott says the engineering and computer science areas are still lacking.

Dr. Ziping Liu, left, helps Mackenzie Bonnville during her computer science class at Southeast Missouri State University's Dempster Hall on Thursday morning, Sept. 8, 2016Laura Simon

To combat that and help encourage girls to further pursue math and science fields, Scott says Southeast has been conducting girls in technology camps for the past couple years, targeting girls in the Bootheel.

Dr. Ziping Liu, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Southeast, says there are several nationally recognized programs available for young girls interested in STEM fields, one of which is Girls Who Code, a program founded to help close the gap between men and women in technology.

Since its inception in 2012, Girls Who Code has exploded across the country, going from 20 girls in New York to more than 10,000 grade-school-age girls in 42 states.

"We're seeing the push to involve girls younger, because what we've noticed is that if you don't reach the girls to go into a STEM field and be passionate about math and science and engineering and technology when they're preteens, so 10 to 14, what we know is once they hit high school, they tend to go into the more traditional women's roles," Scott says.

The organization projects that by 2020, there will be 1.4 million jobs available in computer technology-related fields. At this time, graduates in the United States are on track to fill only 29 percent of those jobs, with only 3 percent of those graduates being female.

"If we can push more girls to this education, to this degree, then we can definitely fill that high demand of 1.4 million. That's a win-win situation for the society and for ourselves," Liu says.

Dr. Sophia Scott teaches a graduate class at Southeast Missouri State University's Polytechnic Building on Thursday, Sept. 8.Laura Simon

Another not-for-profit organization aimed at recruiting, retaining and encouraging women in STEM fields is the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology, which was founded in 1994 by computer scientist Anita Borg. The institute's most notable program is the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference, which is the world's largest gathering of women in computing, according to the organization's website.

The National Center for Women & Information Technology also is a not-for-profit organization that works with more than 700 universities, companies, not-for-profits and government organizations worldwide to encourage female participation in computer science fields. The organization targets girls and women from kindergarten through 12th grade in hopes of recruiting, retaining and advancing them to thrive in the technology industry.

The NCWIT reported in 2015 that although women hold 57 percent of all professional occupations, women hold only 25 percent of computing occupations, and only 19 percent are computing research scientists. In terms of minority women, those percentages drop even further, with African-American women only representing 3 percent of the field, Asian-American women 5 percent and Hispanic women 1 percent.

In 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute reported closing the gender gap in the computer technology field could potentially add $12 trillion to the annual gross domestic product globally.

Latrice Borders works on her Lab 2 during her computer science class at Southeast Missouri State University's Dempster Hall on Thursday morning, Sept. 8, 2016Laura Simon

"What I have found out is it comes from inside of our women or ladies, ourselves," Liu says. "So it's kind of from ourselves -- we realize a problem, so we need to raise our voice to [help] society pay attention to this. Don't ignore this effect, because we can contribute a lot to the whole of economics."

Liu says the gender imbalance in computing and information technology has been a recognized issue since 2005, but the statistics have since remained relatively stagnant.

Some contributing factors to this stagnation Liu mentions are the lack of encouragement toward girls to pursue careers in computing technology, and a lack of recruiting and retention when it comes to female graduates.

"Overall I think through the collaboration of organizations, and I do hope we can get more federal and state level of support and the political arena's support for the awareness and encouragement of more girls to go to the field, and then I will see the future is still promising," Liu says.

Scott says she thinks women will continue to become more involved in management and leadership roles in science- and STEM-related fields because more women are working toward college degrees. Along with an increase in degree completion, Scott says a larger number of role models, male and female, also are encouraging women and girls to pursue careers in STEM areas.

"One of the things that is really pertinent is that we involve males. It's not just a female thing, it's an everybody thing," Scott says. "… We've got to involve men, because they're half the population. They're the ones right now that can be role models and mentor women and help them to get ahead."

As time goes on, Liu and Scott both say they see the future of women in STEM fields in a positive light.

"Increasing women in STEM [fields], including technology -- I think it's going to continually increase because it's good for society, I think it's good for everyone," Scott says.