Dr. Dobb's 2012 Salary Survey, June 26, 2012 Our survey of nearly 3500 developers and managers shows that while many salaries are flat, they are increasing overall except for some heavily disfavored niches
The Gender Gap
Our survey found that only 10% of staff and 12% of management were women. This enormous imbalance is often attributed to ephemeral qualities, such as men loving programming passionately, whereas women like it primarily as a job. To speculate on causes as insubstantial as that is to willfully disregard the numbers in this graphic. Women's salaries contracted in 2012 vs. 2011 for staff and vs. 2010 for management. In both categories, men's salaries rose every year.
Perhaps as distressing is the base each gender was working from. On average, female developers earned 14% less than their male counterparts; and in management, the gap was 10%. Let's make this concrete: Women don't enter programming in large numbers in part because they view it as a field in which they will always be outsiders and underpaid.