Barriers to a cybersecurity career: Analysis across career stage and gender

The demand for cybersecurity professionals is high-especially for women. Efforts to attract women to cybersecurity careers are not meeting goals of equal representation. Researchers have not yet identified a theoretical rationale for the differences. To provide a theoretical rationale, we investigate barriers to a cybersecurity career based on career stages defined by Super (1957) and gender. Concerns about a cybersecurity career differ between girls, young adult women, and mid-career women. Girls feel an unawareness of opportunity and requisite training, whereas adult women are concerned that they will be undervalued in a male-dominated field, and mid-career women are concerned about being harassed in a male-dominated field. This paper outlines several suggestions for improving these concerns.& COPY; 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd.