"After decades of employment gains in information technology, women have quickly reversed the trend and are now rapidly abandoning IT -- leading to the defeminization of IT," asserts the Cutter Business Technology Council.

According to Cutter Consortium Fellows Lynne Ellyn and Christine Davis, "Mature women are opting out of the IT field in droves, while fewer and fewer young women are pursuing careers in technology. This is a fact. We can debate the reasons, but the result is a growing void of women in the current IT workforce with many stakeholders having a somewhat cavalier attitude about the issue. Whatever the reasons, the results are bad for business. Diversity is an important factor in creating an environment that is rich with innovation and creativity. If a workplace does not reflect the community it serves, the products and services it produces will lack the insight, perception, acumen, flair, and intelligence of those not involved."

In debating the significance of the situation, the Fellows of the Cutter Business Technology Council saw the impact from varying perspectives.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Tom DeMarco feels:

• The decreasing number of women in IT bodes poorly for the IT industry, which is facing a potential shortfall of young professionals of both genders.

• The trend is minor bad news for IT, but incredibly good news for the world-at-large and even better news for young women: within 15 years, women will so outnumber men in the midlevels of organizations that there will be no stopping them from going to the top.

• IT has a problem. But women don't.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Tim Lister suggests:

• IT is not the place for any young person, female or male, since they will just work hard and then their job will be outsourced to a distant land.

• When we see the loss of half of the IT job candidates, we need to be alarmed.

• When systems for all of us are created and built by a distorted subpopulation of all of us, there will be problems.

• The women of IT will take the lead in pointing the way out of this serious problem.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Lou Mazzucchelli predicts:

• The future US entry-level IT employment pool will exist because it really wants to be in IT, not due to the promise of a high-paying job.

• Our challenge will be to provide this smaller pool with opportunities for financial success and personal growth so that we can at least partially meet the IT needs of US industry from within our borders and ensure that IT practitioners will speak fondly enough of their contributions and rewards that their enthusiasm will kindle a similar spark in their sons and daughters.