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Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

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Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#121

Post by kaitai »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #50
SamBam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > This is in large part because care for family members(children and elderly parents usually) is more often foisted upon women in our society than on men. > How it is more often foisted upon women? The social pressure on men to take deadly jobs and to work longer hours is equal to the social pressure on women to choose careers where they can take time off and be with their kids. So... you're saying the exact same t…

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.

I don't understand the argument here: the previous poster said women are pushed to take care of kids and elderly parents (for no pay, often prompting a reduction in work hours or a desire to stay at a more flexible but lower-paying job, or for me staying in a particular geographic region with lower pay on average) while men are pushed to be primary breadwinners (so they're pushed to make more money, perhaps doing shitty jobs or trading in time with family and community that they would value). It's pretty clear that the people pushed to do work for no money make less money then the people pushed to do work for money, and in fact pushed to make more money when possible. What's the disagreement?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#122

Post by chongli »

rosser wrote: post #118
chongli wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

I live in Canada. We don't need to tell our employers about our families in order to receive health care. We still have a similar gender wage gap though.

Besides, if I did live in the US and the situation came up, I would be more likely to pay for my child's health insurance out of pocket than to take a $40,000 pay cut.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#123

Post by PhasmaFelis »

> No salary gap exists between women and men in tech, says job search firm Dice, looking at its annual survey of 16,000 tech professionals, as long as you are comparing people with equal experience, education, and job titles.

> 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.

Annoying that the article itself seems to contradict its title. We don't have a breakdown of how much effect those different factors have, but from the summary it's possible that women get equal salaries for the same job titles, but are less likely to be hired for/promoted into better-paying titles--which would be the same thing as a gender-based salary gap.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#124

Post by tomp »

shostack wrote: post #64
ultramancool wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a really interesting freakonomics radio episode that goes into some good detail here if anyone's curious where these differences really originate: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...

Beat me to it. The episode is basically an interview with Claudia Goldin who is about as qualified a person as you could hope for to speak on this matter. [1] tl;dr women start out with equal pay, but trade pure monetary compensation for flexibility and/or fewer hours when they have kids because society still sucks at gender equality when it comes to enabling parents to equally contribute to certain aspects of parent…

It's not just society, it's also biology. Even if "parenting" roles were completely equal, "childbirth" role would fall only on women, so they would still take more time off for children (and hence get lower pay).

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#125

Post by dalke »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #44
RodericDay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elsewhere, on a different topic, you posted something along the same lines: > Which gender gets killed most often at work because of a social pressure that your value is determined by having a job, so if the only job options are dangerous, you best take one anyways? Do you like gender roles or not? You've already posted like 5 times in this thread, and I'm not sure if your perspective is "let's do away with gender ro…

The very last line of the post you just responded to. >I think the deeper problem is why are women forced in the child care role and men into the bread winning roles and how to fix that (which you do mention). I would hope that makes my position on the matter clear enough. But in case it doesn't. Wage disparity is caused by gender roles, not by discrimination. But gender roles are still a problem, especially for the…

> Wage disparity is caused by gender roles, not by discrimination

How was Lilly Ledbetter's wage disparity caused by something other than discrimination on the basis of sex? Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter :

"Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236."

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#126

Post by untog »

ta0967 wrote: post #102
untog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I remember reading kids who are breast-fed tend to do better in life in terms of health or being better from a psylogical point of view. The former (health) is absolutely true, but it's nothing that couldn't also be solved by the mother pumping her breast milk and the father doing the actual feeding by bottle. "bottle vs breast" is about the actual milk being fed, not the delivery method.

> "bottle vs breast" is about the actual milk being fed, not the delivery method. that's a very descartesian view, and from my experience and study also very unfounded. all you need to do is observe a baby while it's brestfed vs. bottlefed. would you say that you feel the same after eating off the floor (very clean of course) vs. in a nice setting? after all, it's just about the nutrients, right?

>that's a very descartesian view

No, it's a summation of the debate behind the phrase "bottle vs breast". From a few links when Googling:

- "Deciding whether to breastfeed or use formula for your newborn?"

- "Breast vs. bottle - breast milk is the perfect food for baby, with numerous advantages over infant formula"

- "Here's help deciding if you should breastfeed your baby or bottle feed with formula."

Pretty much every discussion of "bottle vs breast" is discussing "breastmilk vs formula".

> would you say that you feel the same after eating off the floor (very clean of course) vs. in a nice setting?

Would you say that a newborn baby is capable of comprehending the difference between a 5 star restaurant compared to a 3 star one? I'm not sure applying adult opinions to newborn babies is likely to achieve much.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#127

Post by RodericDay »

dalke wrote: post #119
RodericDay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inc…

> which can be split between either parent

That's the issue right there. Not surprised "One in four Swedish dads take no baby leave".

I know things are tricky to roll out, there's tons of quirks here and there. User chongli is on like three leaves of the discussion trying to take the idea down based on implementation details. That comes later.

The whole point is that right now it's a "woman's issue". Forcing men to deal with it would make it a "parent issue", and more resources would be devoted to ironing out the details.

It's like that pithy line I heard once- "If men could get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be controversial".

edit: Can't reply, but I got your reply just fine dalke. What I'm saying is that making it use-it-or-lose-it is still not good enough. Rather, if you don't get why I suggest it needs to be mandatory, it is you who is not getting me.

edit2: Fanning threads on HN are just no good for discussing stuff. Sorry!

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#128

Post by kaitai »

mrrrgn wrote: post #70
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…

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

It already is for female go-getters.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#130

Post by nsxwolf »

mrrrgn wrote: post #70
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…

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

Similarly it would lead to discrimination against large families (large these days being anything more than 2 kids). Employers likely won't tolerate someone having 5 kids over a 5-10 year period and taking all that disruptive and expensive leave.
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