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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

#181

Post by darawk »

prostoalex wrote: post #81
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.

> Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men This blanket statement seems sexist. Some are inclined and some are not. Besides, as soon as one leaves the world of small business, the corporations stick to salary bands attached to specific titles. The variations within the bands are usually driven by longevity with the company as well as performance reviews. It makes things easier in HR department, and cre…

Well, I was simply taking the person I was responding to at their word. I'm not aware of evidence on either side of the issue of whether women negotiate more or less, I was just granting them their supposition, because I think its irrelevant.

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

#182

Post by scythe »

bitexploder wrote: post #71
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…

As mentioned elsewhere, doesn't this article sort of refute the idea that women don't negotiate salary well if their pay for the same rank/role is just 1% different than that of their male counterparts?

Negotiation doesn't just happen in the room. Negotiation is heavily affected by what you do before you enter the room. Someone who is, for example, looking at multiple offers and who wants a high salary is going to "negotiate" a better salary than someone who has only one offer -- not because of some magical skills of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_theory

It's possible that society better equips men for job searching in general, and too much focus is placed on the very moment of agreeing to a salary.

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

#183

Post by klipt »

adamlett wrote: post #144
klipt wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The difference is that it is generally easier to swap money for fulfillment and satisfaction than the other way around.

Most men may agree with you because they're socialized to think that way. Most women may not.

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

#184

Post by BinaryIdiot »

oldboyFX wrote: post #167
rayiner wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Women tend to choose lower paying jobs, such as teacher, caregiver etc. In general women tend to care about people while men care about things (STEM). Again: biology or social construct Social construct. Look at Asian countries that by all accounts have less gender quality than the west but have more women science graduates. India is double the U.K. on that metric. The fact that Sweden has skewed representation…

I thought that Swedish kindergartens and schools make sure not to force gender roles on children. Isn't that a big thing in Sweden? Perhaps money is still a better motivator than gender equal society.

> I thought that Swedish kindergartens and schools make sure not to force gender roles on children

The problem is, even if they didn't do that what about parents who grew up thinking that and then project it on their kids? What about TV and other media consumption that shows stereotypical roles?

It's hard to account for and eliminate all types of gender roles because many are more subtle and / or "normal" to most people who grew up with it.

A quick anecdote: my daughter, who loves science and computers, was playing 'house' with her classmates in preschool when several children told her she had to play the role of mommy while they go out and work in this pretend scenario they created. This made my daughter think "I want to be a boy because girls can't have cool jobs". Those kids she was playing with weren't ever told this is how things had to be but they all had stay-at-home moms so they just assumed it was normal and how things are supposed to be. My wife is also a stay-at-home mom which likely helped reinforce it regardless of how much encouragement we both give our daughter.

So everything influences kids. It's hard to control for all of these variables.

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

#185

Post by marksc »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #104
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…

1. "If women were 25% cheaper than men" That is not what the article said. 2. "women in general are more agreeable than men" ??? 3. "women tend to care about people while men care about things" ???

For #3 see 'Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where, and Why?'[1] The difference between being thing-oriented and people-oriented is larger than the things we think of as obvious gender differences like physical aggressiveness or attitudes toward casual sex.

"For the people–things dimension of interests, the results in Table 1 are clear, strong, and unambiguous. Men tend to be much more thing-oriented and much less people-oriented than women (mean d = 1.18, a ‘very large’ difference, according to Hyde (2005) verbal designations"

[1] http://sci-hub.cc/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00320.x

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

#186

Post by lr4444lr »

UncleMeat wrote: post #126
lr4444lr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?

Certainly that was the case in the past, and cultural inertia is real. This allows inequities and biases to persist over time. So although women are not forced to choose teaching, for example, there are more teaching role models who are women and culture nudges women towards that career. This causes the persistent inequity in career pay that was caused in part by the original influx of women into the field when expli…

Cultural inertia is surely a factor, but I doubt it's as severe as the parent is insinuating. For instance, how do you explain women overtaking men in say, veterinary medicine? At one point, the field was entirely male dominated.

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

#187

Post by anotherbrownguy »

I think the whole issue of "unequal pay" seems very made-up and political and does not make any sense at all, at least in any way anyone can do anything about it... bear with me while I try to explain it.

Lets say there are differences in how much certain demographics of people get paid over another. Lets take short vs tall people or black vs white or with blood groups positive vs negative. Lets say that there is a difference in average pay for people with positive blood groups vs negative blood groups. So what? It could be completely arbitrary or there could be an underlying cause that makes employers pay one type of blood group over another. Either way, why should an employer pay any more than what they think the position is worth as long as someone is willing to voluntarily work for that amount of money? What's in it for any employer to pay more than the employee negotiated to work for?

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

#188

Post by KhanMahGretsch »

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…

the overall point is there is institutional and social pressure (mostly unconscious or learned) for women to avoid those fields.

Is it wise to assign a heavy weighting to an unmeasurable, unverifiable, ethereal sense of discouragement?

What is measurable are character traits that tend to exhibit themselves more strongly in one sex over the other (of course, this varies from individual to individual), and this could help to explain why men and women tend to choose different career paths.

If you believe that women, as a whole, tend to possess the qualities of caring, empathy, and compassion more than men (the cause of which could be biological), it stands to reason that careers which allow them to actualise these qualities would be more attractive, at the expense of monetary gain.

The result of this is, on average, more women occupy a subset of jobs that are difficult, worthwhile, but ultimately of lower economic value in our version of capitalism.

While this does and could not account for the entire issue, it offers one plausible reason that's worthy of some merit.

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

#189

Post by [deleted] »

johnfn wrote: post #98
sushisource wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it's "embarrassing" for this article to be on HN. It addresses your point exactly in the first few paragraphs: "These numbers do not show that the labour market is free of sex discrimination. However, they do suggest that the main problem today is not unequal pay for equal work, but whatever it is that leads women to be in lower-ranking jobs at lower-paying organisations."

That's not my point, though. My essential argument is that sexism creeps in when you say that women select lower-ranking jobs by default. I don't think that's actually true. I think it's more that society views the jobs women work as lower-ranking.

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by makomk »

MartinCron wrote: post #177
x220 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is because many women put their career advancement on hold if they choose to have children?

There's another way to frame that... too few men put their career advancement on hold when they choose to have children. Instead of sharing the burden, society expects a disproportionate sacrifice from women. Typical example: Nobody asks a male CEO or politician who is staying home to take care of the kids.

Of course, missing out on your kids growing up is also a sacrifice itself, even if it's something that maybe we as a society value less than a big salary - and it's certainly something men are expected to value less.
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