Analysis: between 2019 and the end of 2023, women's share of tech jobs rose from 31% to 35% in the US, 23% to 25.2% across the EU, and 29% to 32%+ in the UK
Financial Times : Threads: @folletto.and . LinkedIn: Karen Blake Threads: Erin ‘Folletto’ Casali / @folletto.and : Remote work policies (which implies flexible hours and can allow for hybrid) have contributed to more diversity. Not that we needed more reasons to enact more remote work processes, but hey, this is excellent. LinkedIn: Karen Blake : I had the pleasure of contributing to an article in the Financial Times today, which explores the gender gap in the tech industry across advanced economies. …
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported gains follow years of focus on tech’s hiring and retention barriers for women, including a long-running concern over women leaving the sector. They also sit alongside evidence that smaller startups have used remote work as a recruiting tool, making flexibility a plausible contributor rather than a standalone explanation.
The figures should be read as a measure of change over time, not proof that representation gaps are closed: later EEOC coverage reported a much lower female share in a defined set of US high-tech roles, underscoring how occupational definitions can change the picture.
First-order effects
- The analysis records higher female representation in tech employment across the US, EU and UK from 2019 through 2023, giving employers evidence that workforce composition has moved in the right direction.
- Employers using remote, hybrid or flexible-hour policies gain a stronger retention and recruiting rationale, since the commentary associates those arrangements with greater diversity.
Second-order effects
- Companies competing for technical talent may face more pressure to match flexible-work options, particularly where startups are already using remote work to widen their candidate pools.
- Diversity reporting will need more precise role and workforce definitions: the reported gains coexist with the EEOC’s lower estimate for US high-tech roles, limiting simple comparisons across datasets.
Third-order effects
- If flexible work remains available, tech hiring can become less tied to a narrow set of offices and local labor markets, potentially broadening access to technical careers.
- Progress in overall tech-job shares will not necessarily translate evenly into the highest-paid or most technical roles; durable improvement depends on retention and advancement as well as hiring.
The trend: Workplace flexibility is becoming part of tech’s competition for a broader talent pool, while measurement differences keep the representation gap contested.