[dragonwriter]

> Why does nobody make this argument about Nursing, or Teaching, or Social Work, or Psychology, or any of the "Female dominated" fields?

People make this argument about female dominated fields (particularly education and nursing, which are, or have been, areas of perceived shortages) all the time; they probably don't make it as often in tech industry focused discussion fora, for reasons of lack of relevance to the venue.

[Qworg]

Another issue with this argument is that all of those fields are considerable less well remunerated than technology.

[microcolonel]

http://www.livingin-canada.com/salaries-for-registered-nurse...

http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN...

The average yearly income of a nurse in my country is between $3k less, and $10k more than the average salary of a software developer in my country, depending on the source.

Although the stresses are perhaps not comparable, it's important to note that a nurse working the same hours as a typical software developer could expect to earn around twice as much.

Mind you, educational requirements may be more expensive than for software developers. I'm not familiar enough to speak to that.

http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Employer=Toronto_Distric...

An average elementary school teacher in a nearby city makes about $3k less than an average software developer, with around 7 weeks paid leave. At least one female respondent in another nearby municipality recorded having 10 weeks of paid leave and full benefits. With that, I think that total compensation must be at least on-par.

http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Social_Worker/Salary...

Average salary of a social worker is around $15k less than that of software developers in my country. I don't know as much about social work. I suspect it's good, hard work. I hear that it's risky. Benefits packages are mostly ubiquitous though.

Of the small sample on this site, all respondents said that they were extremely satisfied with their employment as a Social worker.

http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Clinical_Psychologis...

Average clinical psychologist salaries are about $25k higher than average software developer salaries in my country. Likely owing to higher typical educational requirements.

Of the small sample on this site, all respondents said that they were extremely satisfied with their employment as a Clinical Psychologist.

[kaitai]

Canada is nice.

Teachers in the US make on average $58k or so, varying from state to state quite a lot. It's about $30k less than the average software developer in the US, and if you're not very senior as a teacher you might get fired every year and rehired in fall. It's not a very secure job in many places, actually, even if you can teach math or science.

Nurses in the US make a lot more money, on par with developers, but much more physically and emotionally demanding.