The IT industry continues to face a stark paradox: While the demand for skilled professionals is at an all-time high, women remain underrepresented in technical roles. Globally, only 25–30% of technical IT positions are filled by women; in the EU, the figure drops to just 17%. Even more troubling is the so-called “leaky pipeline”: In the U.S., 57% of women leave the industry in mid-career—twice as often as men. This loss of talent has not only social but also economic consequences. Studies show that companies with above-average gender diversity in IT have a 28% higher chance of achieving above-average financial results.
Research underscores the benefits of gender-diverse IT teams: They generate more widely cited publications, identify more usability issues, develop fairer algorithms, and create products that better address diverse user groups. Yet much of the existing research treats “women” as a single, homogeneous category.
This is where a new joint research initiative by the Berliner Hochschule für Technik (BHT) and Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW) breaks new ground. The project applies an intersectional perspective—analyzing how factors such as gender, origin, age, family status, or career path interact and create unique barriers. For example, a single mother with a migration background may face very different challenges than a childless woman without one, or a career changer compared to a computer science graduate.
While intersectionality has been discussed internationally, systematic empirical studies are still lacking in German-speaking countries—despite the strong influence of cultural and structural factors on career development.
The Berlin research team aims to close this gap with a mixed-methods approach: combining quantitative data analysis with qualitative interviews and computational methods such as Natural Language Processing. The goal is to provide companies with a practical toolbox, including diagnostic tools, strategic prioritization models, and evidence-based evaluation concepts—all developed with an intersectional lens.
Initial findings already show clear correlations: Women with multiple diversity characteristics face intensified, specific barriers that cannot be addressed with one-size-fits-all support measures.
The researchers are now calling on women in IT across German-speaking countries to contribute their experiences by taking part in an anonymous online survey here.
Every perspective matters. By participating, women in IT can help shape recommendations that enable companies to sustainably tap into overlooked talent pools and make the industry more inclusive for all.
Feel free to share the survey with colleagues, networks, and communities!
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Selcan Ipek-Ugay, BHT, selcan.ipek-ugay@bht-berlin.de
(Deputy Speaker of the Group “Women and Computer Science” of the German Informatics Society)
Prof. Dr. Jörn Freiheit, HTW Berlin, joern.freiheit@htw-berlin.de
Prof. Dr. Juliane Siegeris, HTW Berlin, juliane.siegeris@htw-berlin.de
