Global and Latin American female participation in evidence-based software engineering: a systematic mapping study

Abstract

Context: While the digital economy requires a new generation of technology for scientists and practitioners, the software engineering (SE) field faces a gender crisis. SE research is a global enterprise that requires the participation of both genders for the advancement of science and evidence-based practice. However, women across the world tend to be significantly underrepresented in such research, receiving less funding and less participation, frequently, than men as authors in research publications. Data about this phenomenon is still sparse and incomplete; particularly in evidence-based software engineering (EBSE), there are no studies that analyze the participation of women in this research area. Objective: The objective of this work is to present the results of a systematic mapping study (SM) conducted to collect and evaluate evidence on female researchers who have contributed to the area of EBSE. Method: Our SM was performed by manually searching studies in the major conferences and journals of EBSE. We identified 981 studies and 183 were authored/co-authored by women and, therefore, included. Results: Contributions from women in secondary studies have globally increased over the years, but it is still concentrated in European countries. Additionally, collaboration among research groups is still fragile, based on a few women as a bridge. Latin American researchers contribute a great deal to the field, despite they do not collaborate as much within their region. Conclusions: The findings from this study are expected to be aggregated to the existing knowledge with respect to women’s contribution to the EBSE area. We expect that our results bring up a reflection on the gender issue and motivate actions and policies to attract female researchers to this area.