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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

#141

Post by Lawtonfogle »

dalke wrote: post #125
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mana…

Single past data point does not make a modern day trend.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#142

Post by marssaxman »

softawre wrote: post #132
marssaxman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer flexible work arrangements for the very simple reason that there are lots of things I want to do with my life in addition to my job. Nobody ever offers this, somehow. It would be a better world if flexible work hours were a normal thing, not something you have to justify based on traditional gender roles. I feel a little bitter when people go on about the importance of "negotiation" over job offers, be…

What exactly are you asking for? At ININ, we have core hours of 10-4, and you can fill out the rest however you want. Seems a decent compromise for a salary employee gig. If you want real flexible hours you can always do contract work or start a business.

I don't want to do contract work or start a business (again). That would make the problem worse, not better, because I'd have to spend more of my time on my job in order to make a living, and the additional time would be spent on tasks I enjoy less and am not as good at as the work I do which is the focus of my career. The point is that I have a wide variety of interests and to me a good life is one where I get to pursue them. Focusing exclusively on a single activity (coding!) might be better in terms of making money, but what am I making that money for if I can't use it to live a good life in the other ways I want to live it?

Your response illustrates the problem I was describing: why, when I suggest that the standard packages don't suit me, do you think it is helpful to suggest that I just pick one of them and deal with it? Why shouldn't we accept, as an industry, that different people have different needs and different motivations, and consider it normal to work out whatever mix of time, responsibility, and compensation suits each person?

The paradox of the salaried job is that you can either have money to spend or time to spend it in, but you can't have both, because nobody will let you trade some of one for some of the other. Well, why not? If we adopted a flexible attitude about work hours, as a culture, it would not just make things better for women who are stuck with traditional family-care tasks, but for everyone - whether they want to use that flexibility to raise a family or for something else important to their life happiness.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#143

Post by rosser »

nsxwolf wrote: post #130
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."

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.

Because people should totally be making major life decisions on the basis of what employers will "tolerate".

FFS. We've already ceded enough control over our lives to these companies whose only agenda is to suck people dry, and then find new ways to wring even more out of them.

Businesses exist to serve people's needs and interests. People do not exist to serve businesses.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#144

Post by borgchick »

samd wrote: post #16

That's good news if true, the women who make it and get promoted earn the same as their counterparts. Still lots of work to be done removing the barriers that keep them from getting these jobs and promotions in the first place.

exactly, having been in the industry for more than 10 years, promotion is really hard to come by

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#145

Post by dalke »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #120
dalke wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

What is the question? You asked two in your earlier comment. My answer primarily addresses your first question:

> So what you are saying is that more experienced and more educated people get paid more?

The answer to that is "no." I interpret jonesb6's comment as pointing out that the survey depends on a survivorship bias.

Thus, "more experienced and more educated people get paid more" is an incorrect translation of that comment as jonesb6 was not saying that but was making a different point.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#146

Post by ra1n85 »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #29
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…

>It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. It also doesn't account for full time covering a wide number of hours worked. Full time can be 37 hours a week or 45 hours a week, can comparing them as both just being 'full time' misses quite a lot. >This is in large part because care for family members(children and elderly parents usually) is more often foisted upon wome…

Or 80 hours per week. In the tech industry in particular, I would be interested in what this looks like.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#147

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

stvswn wrote: post #94
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…

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.

If we're talking about Silicon Valley and the tech field in general, there already is a penalty for being a father to young children and/or expecting them. A good deal of tech jobs are well over 40 hours a week, sometimes work is all there is time for. That is not an environment conducive to being an active and involved father.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#148

Post by dragonwriter »

sbov wrote: post #104
dragonwriter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? As long as there are substantial number to whom it does apply, it will remain a real on-average sex difference.

This sub-topic was about normalizing parental leave. Is your argument then that societal policy should only be based upon real on-average differences?

> Is your argument then that societal policy should only be based upon real on-average differences?

I wasn't actually making an argument beyond what I posted; if I was to provide an explanation of its relevance it is that it is a fairly common position that real and relevant differences are a necessary, but not necessarily, sufficient condition for policy distinctions, and that insofar as the subthread on the advantages of being with the mother was relevant to the broader subject to start with, it remained relevant (though not, in and of itself, demanding any particular conclusion) as long as there was a real, on-average difference.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#149

Post by atonparker »

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 think you misread the parent. They were saying that specifically family care is foisted on women (more often). In just the previous sentence they assert that men face an equal but opposite pressure.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#150

Post by Lawtonfogle »

RodericDay wrote: post #127
dalke wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

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

An interesting line which seems to ignore evidence as to which gender is more expected to care for their child and treated harsher when they don't.

The underlying ideal is that men would favor men and they would all vote to legalize abortion, but this ignores both how there are many women who are against abortion (while few are against all forms, most are against some forms). It also ignores how men often hold other men accountable for caring for their children, including supporting laws that put dead beat fathers into prison.

I prefer the line "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be illegal."

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