[R] Gender balance in R

Scott Kostyshak skostysh at princeton.edu
Wed Nov 26 07:13:48 CET 2014


On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Maarten Blaauw
<maarten.blaauw at qub.ac.uk> wrote:
> Nice graph, Scott, thanks!
>
> Based on your code I plotted not the absolute numbers but the ratios, which
> show slowly increasing relative participation of female Rhelpers over time
> (red = women, blue=men, black=unknown). After a c. 5% female contribution in
> 1998, this has grown to about 15% now. At this rate we'll reach parity
> around AD 2080.

Interesting forecasts Maarten! Let's hope for a trend break to make them wrong.

Scott


--
Scott Kostyshak
Economics PhD Candidate
Princeton University

> My code:
>
> if (!require(gender)) {
> library(devtools)
> install_github("scottkosty/gender")
> library(gender)
> }
> rHelp <- rHelpNames
> rHelp[is.na(rHelp$gender), "gender"] <- "unknown"
>
> yr <- unique(rHelp$year)
>
> helpers <- list(dates, M=rep(0, length(yr)), F=rep(0, length(yr)),
> unkn=rep(0, length(yr)))
>
> for(i in 1:nrow(rHelp))
>  {
>   j <- which(yr == rHelp$year[i])
>   gender <- rHelp$gender[i]
>   if(gender == "M")
>    helpers$M[[j]] <- helpers$M[[j]]+1 else
>     if(gender == "F")
>      helpers$F[[j]] <- helpers$F[[j]]+1 else
>       if(gender == "unknown")
>        helpers$unkn[[j]] <- helpers$unkn[[j]]+1
>  }
> plot(yr, helpers$M / (helpers$M+helpers$F+helpers$unkn), type="l", col=4,
> ylim=c(0,1), ylab="proportions", yaxs="i")
> lines(yr, helpers$F / (helpers$M+helpers$F+helpers$unkn), col=2)
> lines(yr, helpers$unkn / (helpers$M+helpers$F+helpers$unkn))
>
> Cheers,
>
> Maarten
>
>
> On 25/11/14 12:11, Scott Kostyshak wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Sarah Goslee <sarah.goslee at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I took a look at apparent gender among list participants a few years ago:
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2011-June/280272.html
>>>
>>> Same general thing: very few regular participants on the list were
>>> women. I don't see any sign that that has changed in the last three
>>> years. The bar to participation in the R-help list is much, much lower
>>> than that to become a developer.
>>
>>
>> I plotted the gender of posters on r-help over time. The plot is here:
>> https://twitter.com/scottkosty/status/449933971644633088
>>
>> The code to reproduce that plot is here:
>> https://github.com/scottkosty/genderAnalysis
>> The R file there will call devtools::install_github to install a
>> package from Github used for guessing the gender based on the first
>> name (https://github.com/scottkosty/gender).
>>
>> Note also on that tweet that Gabriela de Queiroz posted it, who is the
>> founder of R-ladies; and that David Smith showed interest in
>> discussing the topic. So there is definitely demand for some data
>> analysis and discussion on the topic.
>>
>>> It would be interesting to look at the stats for CRAN packages as well.
>>>
>>> The very low percentage of regular female participants is one of the
>>> things that keeps me active on this list: to demonstrate that it's not
>>> only men who use R and participate in the community.
>>
>>
>> Thank you for that!
>>
>> Scott
>>
>>
>> --
>> Scott Kostyshak
>> Economics PhD Candidate
>> Princeton University
>>
>>> (If you decide to do the stats for 2014, be aware that I've been out
>>> on medical leave for the past two months, so the numbers are even
>>> lower than usual.)
>>>
>>> Sarah
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Maarten Blaauw
>>> <maarten.blaauw at qub.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi there,
>>>>
>>>> I can't help to notice that the gender balance among R developers and
>>>> ordinary members is extremely skewed (as it is with open source software
>>>> in
>>>> general).
>>>>
>>>> Have a look at http://www.r-project.org/foundation/memberlist.html - at
>>>> most
>>>> a handful of women are listed among the 'supporting members', and none
>>>> at
>>>> all among the 29 'ordinary members'.
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand I personally know many happy R users of both genders.
>>>>
>>>> My questions are thus: Should R developers (and users) be worried that
>>>> the
>>>> 'other half' is excluded? If so, how could female R users/developers be
>>>> persuaded to become more visible (e.g. added as supporting or ordinary
>>>> members)?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Maarten
>>>>
>>> --
>>> Sarah Goslee
>>> http://www.functionaldiversity.org
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
> --
> | Dr. Maarten Blaauw
> | Lecturer in Chronology
> |
> | School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology
> | Queen's University Belfast, UK
> |
> | www  http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/blaauw
> | tel  +44 (0)28 9097 3895



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