Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries • Hacker News Board

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#111

Post by parennoob » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

jrock08 wrote: post #83

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I explain my issue with this question. >How it is more often foisted upon women? I show that there is an equal pressure put on men to do different things. My issue is with the "more often". Now, maybe you were only talking about the pressure on women and not the pressure on men... you should be able to see the issue with this as well.

Except that we are talking about why women on average don't make as much during their careers. You are punting and saying, well men have pressure to work more. You are absolutely right, and it should be part of the conversation, but you've not somehow proved that the women being encouraged to prioritize family isn't a problem.

It's two sides of the same coin – women are pressured to pay more attention to family with the exact same mechanisms (society, older relatives, media etc.) that men are pressured into working long hours and being primary breadwinners.

Unfortunately, most comments only mention one side of the problem (that of women being pressured to focus on family), and that leads to reflexive "But what about the pressure on men?" indignant replies. Therefore, it would be good to acknowledge this as a dual issue every time it's brought up, or make it more gender-neutral ("pressure from society to retain outmoded family roles") so friction like the above does not ensure.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#112

Post by chongli » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

RodericDay wrote: post #96

mnx wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrible idea. It may seem nice to a person with a lot of disposable income, who can afford for both people in the family to take have a break from their careers, but forcing that on people who are in poor financial condition is just terrible.

Parental leave is paid.

But how much is it paid? If somebody is making six figures, is it going to cover the whole amount? That seems unlikely. If it's a low percentage of the total amount, then it's forcing a big pay cut that families may not be able to afford.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#113

Post by ZoeZoeBee » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

caublestone wrote: post #87

ahoy wrote: post #15

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity. Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a fe…

63% of minimum wage workers are women: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/who-are-... Increasing minimum wage would effectively increase the 77% number also.

It would increase it for the wrong reason, and only in the short-term, you pre-suppose that increasing the minimum wage won't lead to other wage increases. Why would someone who is getting paid more than minimum wage to perform a job which requires a skill be ok with being paid less than they were before, in relative means?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#114

Post by whiddershins » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

13thLetter wrote: post #99

_jmar777 wrote: post #78

> they’re getting equal pay for equal equal positions, education, and experience While those are certainly relevant control factors, I would presume that any conclusions are premature without demonstrating a lack of bias in the actual positions men vs. women are promoted to, relative to their experience and education. I.e., large disparities in salary by gender for "Software Engineer III" within the same organization…

> While those are certainly relevant control factors, I would presume that any conclusions are premature without demonstrating a lack of bias in the actual positions men vs. women are promoted to, relative to their experience and education. I'm wondering why the default assumption is that there is bias, and we're being expected to prove a negative here.

I don't know ... have you wandered around the world and actually talked to real people about how they view gender?

Almost no one will assert they think men and women are exactly the same.

So if everyone starts from the presumption that there is some, poorly defined, somewhat-conscious, never agreed upon, but certainly real, difference between men and women ... a bias in treatment would be the default condition, and would probably require conscious effort and/or policy to overcome.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#115

Post by adventured » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

caublestone wrote: post #87

ahoy wrote: post #15

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity. Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a fe…

63% of minimum wage workers are women: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/who-are-... Increasing minimum wage would effectively increase the 77% number also.

Only 1% of the US civilian labor force earns the minimum wage. So you're talking about a small fraction of the total US pay base. It wouldn't even remotely dent the 77% number, first because the minimum wage affects so relatively few, and second because the wages in the group are so small it won't meaningfully impact the median income that primarily drives the 77%.

To put it into perspective, by your 63% number, it comes out to about 1 million women versus 750,000 men. Shifting the pay of those 250,000 minimum wage workers (that represent the sex gap on minimum wage) by $2 or $3 probably will not even move the 77% number to 77.25%.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#116

Post by chongli » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

RodericDay wrote: post #98

stvswn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you'd be creating a penalty for hiring people who are likely to have children. As a father of young and yet unborn children, I wouldn't appreciate it.

Currently there's a penalty for hiring women based on that exact same reasoning.

Right, but that penalty is deeply ingrained into our capitalist society. You can't solve it with just a quick bandaid fix.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#117

Post by caseysoftware » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #52

kough wrote: post #22

Does anyone have a link to reliable breakdowns of different professions by race and gender? Tech gets slammed particularly hard for being "white male cishet scum" and I'd love to see how it compares to other fields. I can't imagine fields like law or nursing or mining or teaching or policing are much more equal.

Here are BLS numbers on profession by gender and age: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat09.htm The legal profession has actually made significant progress in closing the gender gap. Tech has a problem with gender. I'm not sure it's helpful to point out that other fields also have similar or even worse problems.

> I'm not sure it's helpful to point out that other fields also have similar or even worse problems.

I think it goes to the motivation:

- If the motivation is to encourage gender balance/equality, then looking at and comparing with other fields is perfectly reasonable.

- If the motivation is that tech is a high paid yet incredibly low (physical) risk field, then it is self-serving to care about gender balance/equality here and not in other areas.

For example, I know a female completion engineer (oil rigs) who makes stupid amounts of money but lives as the lone woman on an oil platform for weeks at a time and smells horrible for days after. She knows it's an incredibly risky job and that if something goes wrong (rare but happens), odds aren't great for her. When she talks to women in engineering programs, she's openly sneered at.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#118

Post by rosser » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #108

RodericDay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of "mandatory paternity leave", to make up for the biological asymmetry. Even if you have a stereotypical breadwinner/housewife relationship, you are legally mandated to take time off, even if you don't want to. That way you avoid the "you're allowed to take paternal leave, but real go-getters don't!" game altogether. edit: The way I see it, the responses just prove my point. "This would just make peo…

How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father? If you institute "mandatory paternity leave" then he just won't tell you. It's already illegal to ask about marital status during a job interview. Are you suggesting we change that, too? Then you risk further reducing the number of marriages in society. The whole problem with paternity leave is that there's a financial disincentive for companies to offer it a…

How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father?

Well, for one thing, there's the bit where, if the new child will be covered under the father's health plan, he kinda has to tell HR about it. So they can, you know, change the coverage?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#119

Post by dalke » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

RodericDay wrote: post #86

mrrrgn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already suffer from declining birthrates in the west. Your solution would make not having a child the best choice for "go-getters."

My solution may not be optimal, but the status quo is "male go-getter with supportive female companion" as standard model of coupling. If we have to deal with declining birthrates while we figure out a more fair and sane arrangement, that doesn't pit family building against professional success, I'm down.

The Swedish way is to have 480 days of parental leave per child, which can be split between either parent. "For 390 of the days, parents are entitled to nearly 80 per cent of their normal pay up to a maximum monthly income of 37,000 kroner ($4,500)." - http://www.thelocal.se/20151229/one-in-four-swedish-fathers-... .

Also, "From January 1st 2016, the number of use-it-or-lose-it 'pappamånad' or 'daddy months' will increase from two to three, in an bid to push couples to share early years childcare more equally." because currently "One in four Swedish dads take no baby leave".

Mandatory parental leave is tricky. Is that a month in a row? As a self-employed person, am I prohibited from filings taxes, sending out invoices, and support questions? Or can I work one day a week?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#120

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #109

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That, of course, is a big if. And previous data from Dice found about a $10,000 pay gap between men and women if not controlled for those factors. So what you are saying is that more experienced and more educated people get paid more? The horror! Seriously though, what is the problem with more experienced and educated people getting paid more?

There are more forms of discrimination on the basis of sex than unequal pay, which is what this survey most directly evaluates. Some of the forms of discrimination are illegal, others are not. Some of the latter may be due to cultural effects which we collectively may decide to change. The problem is that logic you gave is suspect to a survivorship bias. Consider a hypothetical where 50% of the women in tech are arbi…

>The problem is that logic you gave is suspect to a survivorship bias.

There is no such problem. What you are bringing up is a related, but different issue. The underlying question is still valid for the problem being discussed. If we want to bring in related but different problems... we could start by bringing in the issue of the gender difference in prisons which has really nasty effect on ability get a good wage... or a job at all.