ABSTRACT
Background: Gender diversity is an important feature for software
development. Studies show that teams with more diversity are more
productive, too. Objective: This study is a systematic review that
analyzes women’s motivations to contribute to software development,
focusing on a sense of belonging. Method: A protocol was
established and the works retrieved by the applied search string.
It was analyzed according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Results: The results showed that the main factors that motivate
women to contribute to software projects are Kinship, Career and
Learning. However, the sense of belonging, related to the term
Kinship, was more important in the analysis of groups composed
only of women, compared to heterogeneous groups. Conclusions:
Thus, it was found that there are differences in motivations between
genders, and the sense of belonging is more relevant for
women than for men. Therefore, to increase diversity in software
projects, an important factor to be improved is the belonging of the
contributors.