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When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

economist.com

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Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#41

Post by maxerickson »

carlmcqueen wrote: post #8

This rigged need to prove the same work is being paid the same always rings pretty hollow for me. In my first corporate job I was the most technical employee by far, I did the work of far senior roles because my managers were wise to use a lot of my technical skill to get complex work done all the while having HR tell me I didn't have enough years and experience to have the higher paying job title. Just because someo…

In your anecdote you were underpaid because you lacked leverage.

What if you had been underpaid because your name was Carl?

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#42

Post by darawk »

burkaman wrote: post #36
darawk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conceptio…

What do you think causes such extreme gender disparities in positions like CEO, or board of directors?

I don't know. There are many possible explanations. One is sexism. Another is that women are less likely to negotiate. Another is that maybe women tend to be CEOs of companies that are less valuable, or that rely less on the expertise of their CEO.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#43

Post by klipt »

Others wrote: post #28
darawk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conceptio…

The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.

Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers based on pay.

Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative.

Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are less fulfilled and satisfied by their jobs.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#45

Post by illuminati1911 »

johnfn wrote: post #17

The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job differences go away, because the job differences are the pay gap. A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. It embarrasses me to see this on HN.

And job differences are individual decisions. We can finally stop the "women are being paid less/discriminated ...yadayada..." -horseshit.

Teaching is done/funded by the society in most cases and paid with tax dollars. Some jobs being "underpaid" or paid too much are problems that come from the lack of real capitalism where everybody would be paid their actual market value and we could remove the whole word "underpaid" from the dictionary.

It embarrasses me to see someone not realizing this.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#46

Post by johnfn »

cubecul wrote: post #29
johnfn wrote: post #17

The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job differences go away, because the job differences are the pay gap. A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. It embarrasses me to see this on HN.

I don't share your embarrassment. There's a significant chunk of the country that doesn't understand the issue - they think the claim is about blatantly discriminatory practices. In some cases, I'm not sure that even the people who do advocate for solutions to the pay gap truly understand what the core issue is. Both of this caused by the way all of this has been worded. Worth clarifying all of this as much as possib…

Yes, the wage gap isn't literally about cigar-smoking men in dark rooms deciding to systematically pay women less. It's more like someone who claims not to see gender paying women less because men negotiated or "seemed more confident".

I'm embarrassed because this kind of stuff can and will be used to continue the narrative of "women make just as much as men" which isn't true.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#47

Post by cisanti »

johnfn wrote: post #17

The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job differences go away, because the job differences are the pay gap. A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. It embarrasses me to see this on HN.

Then what do you say to all the men who either die or lose their health doing difficult and dangerous jobs, often for peanuts?

If you can't prove me men teachers are being paid more, your argument is invalid. Women choose very different careers and that's fine, but the choice is there.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#48

Post by mrkurt »

darawk wrote: post #37
johnfn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.

That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.

It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism.

Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#49

Post by [deleted] »

johnnyb9 wrote: post #33
mathperson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. But it isn't really subject to market forces the way software engineering is. A better teacher doesn't bring in more revenue and profit for a public school. Most teachers work in public schools. I am not disagreeing with you in general (I am not taking a stand either way) but this is a pretty silly example.

So they are valuable, so long as you don't value them with money.

[deleted]

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#50

Post by bitexploder »

johnfn wrote: post #31
darawk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conceptio…

> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.

Doesn't this article refute that idea? If the pay gap is less than 1% for same rank/same job that means whatever is causing that 1% delta is pretty small. How much of that can you attribute to a lack of "negotiating" and is that 1% significant ?

That would mean basically a woman accepted 99K where a man accepted 100K. At that scale negotiating and gap is almost non-existent.

And you don't generally negotiate position and or rank. You apply for or get recommended for a job and get it or not, negotiating is usually about the dollars and cents after being in strong consideration for a position or after being given an initial offer for a position.

If women /are/ discriminated against you might even argue, based on this data, they are better at negotiating than men and that could make up for them being so close in pay for same rank / same role jobs. The point is the data doesn't support it.

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