A Multicultural Analysis of Factors Influencing Career Choice for Women in the Information Technology Workforce

This article presents an analysis of cultural/actors influencing the career choices of women in the IT workforce. We employ the individual differences theory ofgender and IT as a theoretical lens to analyze a qualitative data set ofinterviews with 200 women in/our different countries. The themes that emerged from this analysis speak to the influence ofcultural attitudes about maternity, childcare, parental care and working outside the home on a woman schoice ofan ITcareer. In addition, several additional socio-cultural factors served to addfurther variation to genderedcultural influences: genderedcareer norms, socialclass; economic opportunity, and gender stereotypes about aptitude. These results lendfurther empirical support to the emergent individual differences theory ofgender and IT that endeavors to theorize within-gender variation with respect to issues related to gender and IT They also point to areas where educational and workplace interventions can be enacted.