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There seem to be far more female programmers in India and former Soviet bloc countries. Poverty is the obvious link. When you want a well paid job, niceties lik
by zigzigzag 10y ago
There seem to be far more female programmers in India and former Soviet bloc countries. Poverty is the obvious link. When you want a well paid job, niceties like role models or what your friends think are less important, and gender ratios become more balanced.
- watwut 10y agoI am from former Soviet block country and there is no surge of female programmers. Also, poor people don't become programmers - only middle class kids do. Poor don't have computers at home and schools don't teach programming. You have to learn from elsewhere.
- dominotw 10y agoCurious what you mean by middle class? in the 90's there was no such thing as middle class in India, everyone was poor. From what I read soviet countries like Russia were the same in 90's, sure some people were slightly better off than other but not enough to form a social class. Perhaps things are different now ?
- zigzigzag 10y agoYeah, but I've worked in software in Europe for years and my experience has been that if a developer is female, it's a solid bet that she's from eastern Europe or Russia. This is an incredibly strong and noticeable correlation. I don't think there's been a recent surge or anything - it feels like it's always been this way. Poor is obviously relative in this context. Poor relative to western women.