When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by johnfn » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

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 absolutely sexism that salary negotiations favor behaviors that men are comfortable with and women are not.

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

#52

Post by darawk » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

chickenfries wrote: post #38

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. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. I challenge you to question if either of these assumptions hold in all cases or just in an idealized world where everyone is a "rational consumer."

No, certainly it doesn't happen in all cases. But the idea that there is a systematic bias against female-dominated professions is just silly.

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

#53

Post by ringaroundthetx » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

oldboyFX wrote: post #11

Still not sure what to believe on this issue. Some points of discussion are (unrelated to article): 1. If women were 25% cheaper than men while being as competent, wouldn't white/male capitalists trip over themselves to only hire women to increase their profits? 2. Women are less likely to negotiate salary and assert themselves, as women in general are more agreeable than men. Is this behavior based in biology or is…

HIRED has a report out which reveals demographics on what the employees themselves ask for, and what employers offered them.

It reveals, as in a piece of data that wasn't typically part of the conversation, that some groups ask for less to begin with while the employer offers them more. But this 'more' amount is still less than employees that asked for more than that to begin with.

The average of black candidates, and women candidates, simply asked for less than the average of white male candidates. Got offered more, took the 'generous' offer and retroactively find out they are on the lower side of the pay gap, again on average.

Much of the discussion seems to place a blame squarely on employers, describing a cabal of shadowy prejudiced men in the board room ensuring someone gets 30% less or 30% more just because. And I think that is not an entirely productive discussion, if all the reactionary HR training fails to find this while other aspects aren't even discussed at all.

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

#54

Post by glibgil » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

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.

You just made a sexist comment. Did you mean to?

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

#55

Post by cisanti » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #32

oldboyFX wrote: post #11

Still not sure what to believe on this issue. Some points of discussion are (unrelated to article): 1. If women were 25% cheaper than men while being as competent, wouldn't white/male capitalists trip over themselves to only hire women to increase their profits? 2. Women are less likely to negotiate salary and assert themselves, as women in general are more agreeable than men. Is this behavior based in biology or is…

Point (1) makes perfect sense, except that historically the answer has very clearly been "no", as it has applied to capable women, people of color, LGBTQ, etc. etc.

Source?

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

#56

Post by rch » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

abritinthebay wrote: post #9

Generally speaking the problem isn't that individuals get paid less. It's systemic issues - which are harder to fix. For example: women as a whole are less likely to be in higher paying jobs in STEM roles. Or CEOs. Or high level Politicians. Why? Multiple reasons but the overall point is there is institutional and social pressure (mostly unconscious or learned) for women to avoid those fields. So the average gets low…

You should at least consider the possibility that intelligent, charismatic women may not be as willing to pursue 'STEM roles' as equivalently advantaged men.

If someone is able to teach occasional yoga classes, do little PR work, and still travel internationally 3 months out of the year... who is to say that is less desirable than a full-time, higher paying job?

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

#57

Post by DonbunEf7 » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

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.

You can't pick on education and then talk about negotiation; educators often are represented by unions, which means that you're talking about a completely different ball game.

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

#58

Post by learc83 » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

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.

To the extent that women negotiate less due to biology, it's almost definitely not purely down to biology.

That means there's likely some kind of societal pressure keeping them from negotiating as much. There have been plenty of studies that show assertive women are seen as just being bitchy while assertive men are seen as strong leaders.

That societal difference is sexism. Individuals don't have to be consciously sexist for implicit bias to affect women.

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

#59

Post by jmull » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

It hardly seems like a fair measure of pay gap if you don't take into account disparities in promotions.

At the same level, company and function the pay gap is small. Yet, women are stuck in lower-ranked positions in greater proportion for some reason.

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

#60

Post by elsurudo » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 8:42 PM UTC

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.

There are male teachers, too.