> for one, the fact that there are fewer women than men in any field, computing or otherwise, is neither good nor bad. the disproportionate number of women in nursing is not seen as a problem, but somehow it has become one in tech.
I don't agree. I think the gender disparity in nursing is just as much a problem. I think it's a significantly less tractable problem though, because I don't think the monetary incentives are there for men to enter nursing.
As for your economic arguments, I think they're oversimplified. We really don't know what the job market is going to look like long-term. We do know that the computing job market has quadrupled in size over the past 20 years, and it is a good bet that the job market can quadruple again over the next 20 years, without any loss in median salary.
Back to monetary incentives. The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary.
> The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary.
That's not accurate, at least when controlling for location. Going by BLS data, the difference between RNs and software engineers is less than 25% in LA, NYC, Boston, Chicago, San Jose and probably many other places that I didn't check. In San Francisco, RNs actually get paid more on average.
It's not useful to control for location without controlling for number of jobs available. What I'm really trying to approximate is "How difficult is it to get a job making at least a six-figure salary as a nurse or a software developer?" In SF for example, there are at least twice as many software developer positions as nursing positions. So while the median may be higher for nurses, it's still harder to get a high-paid nursing job than a similarly paid software job.
I agree with both of you, in some regards. But just thinking about it...maybe it's okay to have an uphill battle to get into a field that's prized. "Natural selection" of sorts...or survival of the fittest, etc. The field being dominated by males at this moment, might simply be a temporal problem that will automatically change in time without much specific effort.
> I don't agree. I think the gender disparity in nursing is just as much a problem.
What makes you say that? An argument could be made that women, in general, are more nurturing and that role fits them better than men. I know in that environment I'd prefer a woman taking care of me over a man.
I don't agree. I think the gender disparity in nursing is just as much a problem. I think it's a significantly less tractable problem though, because I don't think the monetary incentives are there for men to enter nursing.
As for your economic arguments, I think they're oversimplified. We really don't know what the job market is going to look like long-term. We do know that the computing job market has quadrupled in size over the past 20 years, and it is a good bet that the job market can quadruple again over the next 20 years, without any loss in median salary.
Back to monetary incentives. The median salary for software engineers could be reduced by 25% and it would still be a good career choice. So there's no real reason not to encourage more people to enter the field. Nursing has a substantially lower median salary.