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

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#211

Post by randyrand » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

RodericDay wrote: post #42

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…

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 far are you willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of a few percentage points increase in your so called "equality."

You need to get your priorities aligned. This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#212

Post by cortesoft » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

losteric wrote: post #188

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…

I fully agree with everything here, especially getting rid of stereotypes around nurturing roles. My question is, what happens if many women and men aren't funneled towards those roles? What if it's a natural preference given our evolutionary history? I'm not saying that's the case, and my parents had no problems reversing nurturing roles over 20 years ago... but given our hyper-"PC" society, I am curious how far soc…

Your second question is tricky to answer, so I am going to ignore it. :D

For your first question, I always think the key is choice and support for people who make choices that are counter to the norm. Sure, it might be that when given a choice free of social pressures, more women might still choose to be the primary caregiver for children than men will.

That is fine, and women and men who make that socially traditional choice should be supported and not judged. The key, however, is to make sure we also support and don't judge the people who choose other arrangements for child caregiving. We should not design laws and social conventions that punish those who choose to go against the norm.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#213

Post by ZoeZoeBee » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

frandroid wrote: post #196

ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The increase in minimum wage does cause increases in near-minimum wages as well, but as you go up the salary scale (which is stretched quite longly, thank you very much), the impact of minimum wage increases is reduced, leading to an overall reduction in inequality.

I'm sorry but there will be no reduction in the overall income gap with a raise in minimum wage. You admit the minimum wage increase will cause the jobs near that rate to increase as well as the medium income levels. The high end of the income scale is so far "stretched" as you say and held by so few people that the effect of the minimum wage increase is insignificant. Infinity -1 is still infinity.

Of course there will be the resultant unintended consequences such as the price of housing rising due to more people having a little bit more to spend, seeing as housing and healthcare are both increasing much faster than incomes and inflation it is likely these two will see the windfall and end up resulting in the lower classes having even less disposable income.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#214

Post by kchoudhu » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:40 PM UTC

shawn-butler wrote: post #159

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…

>> Women tend to find themselves funneled into specific career paths that prioritize flexible hours and often pay less. Men face an opposite pressure - toward inflexible hours but higher pay. 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. >> I see no evidence to support this "funnel" at all in my life/work experi…

> Workers on "flex" schedules in the tech sector underperform by a wide margin.

Proof, please.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#215

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

hnal943 wrote: post #161

shostack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand why we want a society where everyone is trying to both parent and work full time. Specialization is a powerful tool. Speaking personally it makes a lot more sense for my wife to stay home and have primary responsibility for raising our kids and managing our household while I focus on my career. Implicit in this discussion is that the woman who choose flexibility and child-rearing options are oppres…

[deleted]

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#216

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

losteric wrote: post #188

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…

I fully agree with everything here, especially getting rid of stereotypes around nurturing roles. My question is, what happens if many women and men aren't funneled towards those roles? What if it's a natural preference given our evolutionary history? I'm not saying that's the case, and my parents had no problems reversing nurturing roles over 20 years ago... but given our hyper-"PC" society, I am curious how far soc…

[deleted]

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#217

Post by 4bpp » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

losteric wrote: post #188

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…

I fully agree with everything here, especially getting rid of stereotypes around nurturing roles. My question is, what happens if many women and men aren't funneled towards those roles? What if it's a natural preference given our evolutionary history? I'm not saying that's the case, and my parents had no problems reversing nurturing roles over 20 years ago... but given our hyper-"PC" society, I am curious how far soc…

I think that a lot of people approach these sort of issues by constraint propagation from their political axioms - so for instance if they hold that the total work done by all men must be equally valuable to the total work done by all women and there is a set of arguments that together imply this is not the case (such as, for a crude hypothetical setting, "the value of work is proportional to the amount of physical work exerted to perform it" + "men have greater physical strength than women on average" + "men and women exert the same percentage of their strength for the same amount of time while working on average"), they will exercise far greater skepticism than would be warranted by the evidence towards each of those propositions.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#218

Post by CobrastanJorji » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

losteric wrote: post #188

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…

I fully agree with everything here, especially getting rid of stereotypes around nurturing roles. My question is, what happens if many women and men aren't funneled towards those roles? What if it's a natural preference given our evolutionary history? I'm not saying that's the case, and my parents had no problems reversing nurturing roles over 20 years ago... but given our hyper-"PC" society, I am curious how far soc…

Ultimately, over the exceptionally long term, as automation removes the need to work, the solution is to move to a leisure-based society in which everyone is given equal stipends and allow optionally working up to, say, 10 hours per week to earn more, thus removing the problem entirely.

Although that solution may be roughly on the scale of "ultimately, the great heat death of the universe will make the problem moot."

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#219

Post by RodericDay » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #211

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 far are you willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of a few percentage points increase in your so called "equality." You need to get your priorities aligned. This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

I'm actually Canadian, and I was astonished to find, in this very thread, that in the USA you don't even offer paid maternity leave .

Enjoy!

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#220

Post by mbostleman » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

But work that has flexible hours is not equal to work that has inflexible hours. So theoretically equal pay for equal work stands. I guess it's a matter of whether or not you can truly evaluate work equality.