DEV Community

Discussion on: Why do we have more male applicants than female ones?

Collapse
 
dmfay profile image
Dian Fay

The immediate answer to your last question is that you're not drawing from a balanced pool. If you ignore everything else and pick five applicants from a pool of ten women and ninety men you're going to tend to get almost all men unless you take steps to address the discrepancy. You could ask why this situation is how it is, but there's been enough ink spilled on that subject already; the real question is what you're going to do.

The balance of the "default" recruitment pool will change slowly at best. If you want a more equal distribution, that takes work. Meet women candidates where they/we are: literally, as in recruitment efforts and sponsorships at women-focused meetups, conferences, etc; and metaphorically, by offering benefits and a company culture geared towards women's material needs. Our criteria aren't wholly different from men's, but there are subtle distinctions: parental responsibility tends to land on women more often than on men, for example, to say nothing of actually giving birth. Flexible hours and remote work policies are great for everybody but especially for mothers. Here in the US, companies are only required to offer three months of unpaid maternity leave at most (federally; some individual states have gone further). Against that backdrop, extended paid parental leave is a huge sign that a company is making a conscious effort toward employees with family responsibilities. And those employees tend to be women.

Collapse
 
maria_michou profile image
Maria Michou

Hi Dian, thanks for taking the time to answer! Yes, you're correct, it's not a balanced pool, but this has already started to change (not as quickly as I'd like, but still).

Again, you're right, I often go to meet ups with regards to software development, and I see more and more female developers. I agree with your perfect response, we women tend to think about our second (or first) duties as parents and we'd like a safe environment in order to continue to work (equally paid) with no risk of getting fired, because we are less efficient or sth else.

Where I'm coming from is worse than US, but in countries, say in Northern Europe, mothers usually have more benefits.