Full-time workers in computer and mathematical occupations, 2025 annual averages, from the Current Population Survey. Women's median is 85.5% of the men's — a difference of $310 a week, or roughly $16,120 over a year.
Across all occupations the same comparison is 82.1%, so computing is slightly better than the national average on this measure. Slightly.
What this number is not
It is an unadjusted occupational-group median. It compares every woman in the group to every man in it — not the same job, at the same level, with the same years of experience, at the same employer. A controlled comparison produces a smaller number, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
It is still worth publishing, for two reasons. It is what the federal statistical agency actually measures and publishes, so it can be checked. And the composition it reflects is itself the finding: if women are concentrated in the lower-paid and lower-titled parts of the group, the unadjusted gap is measuring exactly that, which is not a measurement error — it is the thing.
The honest version, without inflating anything to make a point: women in computing earn 85.5 cents on the dollar unadjusted, that a like-for-like comparison narrows it substantially, and that the narrowing does not make the unadjusted figure meaningless — because where people sit in a distribution is not a nuisance variable, it is the subject.
The arc, in one table
| Academic year | Women's share of US computer science bachelor's degrees |
|---|---|
| 1983–84 — the peak | 37.1% |
| 1984–85 | 36.8% |
| 1985–86 | 35.7% |
| 2007–08 — the floor | 17.6% |
| 2008–09 | 17.8% |
| 2021–22 — most recent | 22.6% |
Computed from the degree counts published in NCES Digest of Education Statistics Table 325.35, which covers computer and information sciences. The table prints counts, not shares, so these percentages are our arithmetic on its numbers and can be checked against it directly.
What is already paid for
- WIOA — federal training money through your local workforce board, in every county, and displaced homemakers are a named category in that system. Not a loan. CareerOneStop.
- Registered apprenticeships — a wage from the first day. apprenticeship.gov.
- Pell grants — do not have to be repaid, and most families who qualify never file. studentaid.gov.
- Dual enrollment — college credit on a high school transcript, funded by most states.
- Employer tuition reimbursement and certification vouchers — among the least-claimed benefits in American employment. Ask in writing.
Programme names, amounts and deadlines change. These are the doors; verify current terms with the source before counting on a number.
What to do this week
Before your next salary conversation, look up your occupation and state on the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics page. Walk in with the federal number rather than a range from a jobs site.
Eight routes in, and what each one asks of you
Ordered by what has to be true before the route exists — a school that offers the course, a public programme with money behind it, an open door, or nobody at all.
The high school course
Where the share is 33%, and where the decision to continue is mostly already made.
Depends on your schoolDual enrollment
A community college course taken in high school, funded by most states, and it counts twice.
Publicly or employer fundedCommunity college
Open enrollment in every state, and the least expensive route into the field.
Open, but nobody has to teach youRegistered apprenticeship
A wage from the first day. No tuition, and no gap in earnings.
Publicly or employer fundedReturning after time out
A career break is a gap on a résumé and not a gap in ability. Several employers now recruit for exactly this.
Open, but nobody has to teach youAn industry certificate
Months rather than years, and it dates your skills rather than your gap.
Publicly or employer fundedMoving across where you already work
The most common route into technical work, and the one that requires somebody to know you want it.
Open, but nobody has to teach youSelf-taught with a portfolio
Free, unlimited, and the route where the drop-off is highest and least discussed.
No disclosure dutyBy state
Training money, apprenticeships and colleges are administered state by state and delivered county by county. Find yours.
Photographs on this campaign are licensed stock used as illustration — not portraits of the people inside the federal counts. Full credits: CREDITS.md.