Changing Attitudes Toward Women IT Managers

The Decline Of Women In The It Workforce

Over the past thirty years, the United States (U.S.) business environment has experienced tremendous political, social, and economic upheaval often directed toward improved managerial opportunities for women. In the U.S., women have entered all facets of the labor market and are currently about half of the workforce. It can be argued that women have already attained business career parity, including commensurate compensation, for managerial and professional positions in many fields. The leadership of the United States has been mirrored to a lesser extent by Japan and other developing countries but success is seen as tapering off (Owen & Portillo, 2003). In particular, data from the late 1990s shows that general gains in employment opportunities did not extend to similar increases in the number of women holding IT/IS managerial positions. By 2000, American women comprised 47 percent of the total workforce; while only 29 percent of workers in IT/IS were women.