Abstract
Programming is a valuable skill in the labor market, making the underrepresentation of women in computing an increasingly important issue. Online question and answer platforms serve a dual purpose in this field: they form a body of knowledge useful as a reference and learning tool, and they provide opportunities for individuals to demonstrate credible, verifiable expertise. Issues, such as male-oriented site design or overrepresentation of men among the site’s elite may therefore compound the issue of women’s underrepresentation in IT. In this paper we audit the differences in behavior and outcomes between men and women on Stack Overflow, the most popular of these Q&A sites. We observe significant differences in how men and women participate in the platform and how successful they are. For example, the average woman has roughly half of the reputation points, the primary measure of success on the site, of the average man. Using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, an econometric technique commonly applied to analyze differences in wages between groups, we find that most of the gap in success between men and women can be explained by differences in their activity on the site and differences in how these activities are rewarded. Specifically, 1) men give more answers than women and 2) are rewarded more for their answers on average, even when controlling for possible confounders such as tenure or buy-in to the site. Women ask more questions and gain more reward per question. We conclude with a hypothetical redesign of the site’s scoring system based on these behavioral differences, cutting the reputation gap in half.
Highlights
As coding skills find their way into the basic requirements of many well paying jobs (Glass 2016), the underrepresentation of women in technical fields is becoming an increasingly salient issue (Republic 2014)
Contribution rates for women in open-source programming communities such as GitHub or Stack Overflow are even lower than their overall presence in the IT labor market
These trends align with findings from studies on other open-source communities and knowledge creation platforms, including Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap (Stephens 2013; Ford 2016; Horvath 2014)
Summary
As coding skills find their way into the basic requirements of many well paying jobs (Glass 2016), the underrepresentation of women in technical fields is becoming an increasingly salient issue (Republic 2014). Contribution rates for women in open-source programming communities such as GitHub or Stack Overflow are even lower than their overall presence in the IT labor market.. Contribution rates for women in open-source programming communities such as GitHub or Stack Overflow are even lower than their overall presence in the IT labor market.1 These trends align with findings from studies on other open-source communities and knowledge creation platforms, including Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap (Stephens 2013; Ford 2016; Horvath 2014). In this study we explore reasons behind low participation and success rates of women on Stack Overflow, the largest Q&A platform for programming and an important resource in the open source IT world. We find significant gender gaps in activity: women are more likely to ask questions, while men provide more answers and cast more votes. Given the increasing importance of Stack Overflow and similar sites in both the labor market and knowledge creation, our findings underscore the importance of design decisions and interventions even in well-intentioned and organically grown online communities
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
