Global Participation in Undergraduate Computing

This chapter aims to establish a framework for understanding how and why women's participation in undergraduate computing varies globally. It begins with an overview of women's participation in computing around the world and then reviews the extant literature regarding factors that may contribute to a gender gap in some countries and gender parity in others. The chapter compiles available data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the governments and ministries of education of individual countries. It focuses on the most traditional pathway to a career in the tech industry – earning an undergraduate degree in computing – but there are many alternative pathways, such as through industry‐run training programs or coding boot camps. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of questions about women's participation in computing that remain unanswered and how future research might begin to address them.