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

#281

Post by sheepmullet » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:43 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #265

whiddershins wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to consider that many of these lower paying jobs - such as teachers/caregivers are very hard to tie performance to profits. Therefore the market forces are different or nonexistent, who hires a $500,000/year rock star grade school teacher? Even if such a thing exists and has real impact.

I'd have thought that would be easier to do for teachers than for (the implicit comparison) software engineers.

Not at all. As a parent I have limited choice in who my kids teachers are. Where I lived I didn't even get a choice of schools.

But the market is clearly there - plenty of people here pay $25-$30k/year for private school. With a small class size of 10-15 students that's $250k-$450k/year.

On top of that most people here pay maybe $10-$15k to schools via property tax. So that's another $100k-$150k.

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

#282

Post by micahbright » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:43 PM UTC

gertef wrote: post #257

micahbright wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate them because they fail to point out that, if you added in taxes(women pay no taxes as a group) and welfare/government assistance(women receive almost all benefits as a group) women come out so far ahead of men that it's not even funny. And then you've got child support and alimony...as if women aren't privileged enough.

What does "women pay no taxes" mean? On its face, that's trivially false. More people sharing a larger total benefit doesn't imply that the average individual receives a larger benefit. Raising a child alone is a privilege?

As a group - in the exact same way that they is a wage gap, there is a taxes gap.

And women wouldn't have it any other way than to raise a child alone, but that entirely is besides the point.

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

#283

Post by hackinthebochs » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:45 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #226

hackinthebochs wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's no reason to think that when you consider that jobs generally considered "women's work" require (relatively) less education, or aren't inherently dangerous or physically demanding. There is a glut of supply so the market value of those jobs drops. Consider nursing which is relatively high paying precisely because of the education requirements, specialization, and difficulty of the work. Wages are even ris…

> Consider nursing But even in nursing we see men being promoted faster than women. When we ask why there are so few women tech leaders, or women in tech, we're told it's a pipeline problem: not enough women in STEM education. But that's not the case for nursing. So why do men get promoted over women? Here are some numbers from England. I've picked midwifery and ambulance staff, because there's some contrast there. M…

>But that's not the case for nursing. So why do men get promoted over women?

Hard to say as I know very little about these fields. Presumably people in these fields are promoted because they show leadership or managerial qualities of some sort. Is there a reason to expect leadership or managerial qualities, or the interest in positions with those responsibilities to be unequally distributed among the sexes? Maybe. The differences in assertiveness is one potential explanation. Also the differences in status-seeking behavior. I'm not saying these differences explain it, but they're potential causes that can't be ruled out from the data alone.

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

#284

Post by micahbright » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:46 PM UTC

gertef wrote: post #257

micahbright wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate them because they fail to point out that, if you added in taxes(women pay no taxes as a group) and welfare/government assistance(women receive almost all benefits as a group) women come out so far ahead of men that it's not even funny. And then you've got child support and alimony...as if women aren't privileged enough.

What does "women pay no taxes" mean? On its face, that's trivially false. More people sharing a larger total benefit doesn't imply that the average individual receives a larger benefit. Raising a child alone is a privilege?

"More people sharing a larger total benefit doesn't imply that the average individual receives a larger benefit."

I may have taken one more probability class than you, but the expected value for a woman's taxes over her life is 0. There is no such thing as "the average woman", so whatever point you are trying to make is entirely lost.

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

#285

Post by micahbright » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:48 PM UTC

gertef wrote: post #257

micahbright wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate them because they fail to point out that, if you added in taxes(women pay no taxes as a group) and welfare/government assistance(women receive almost all benefits as a group) women come out so far ahead of men that it's not even funny. And then you've got child support and alimony...as if women aren't privileged enough.

What does "women pay no taxes" mean? On its face, that's trivially false. More people sharing a larger total benefit doesn't imply that the average individual receives a larger benefit. Raising a child alone is a privilege?

Supported by research FYI http://judgybitch.com/2016/08/16/reblog-research-find-that-a...

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

#286

Post by AjithAntony » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:48 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #229

reefoctopus wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the monthly thread where everybody pretends that testosterone and estrogen don't exist.

It's not that testosterone and estrogen don't exist. It's the conceptual leap that testosterone and estrogen explain why women go into one work field versus another. Especially when those proportions vary dramatically across countries. (Do Iranian women, where the majority of STEM majors are women, have different estrogen than American women?).

"Third world" enrollments might not be a valid comparison as STEM is seen as a road to riches. A valid comparison would be a country where women have the privilege of choosing to not seek money.

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

#287

Post by AjithAntony » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 11:58 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #215

rarec wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth. Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of themselves. There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.

Too many women are raised to believe not that they have value in and of themselves but that their value is in their reproductive potential.

I'd say both men and women at some level value themselves in their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women feel value by being attractive to men. And Men feel value by being attractive to women. Men are attracted to women who display youth and beauty as a proxy for reproductive value, and women are attracted to wealth and status as a proxy for support.

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

#288

Post by losvedir » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 12:01 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #97

The "for the same work" piece of it rings hollow and is fighting a battle that didn't need to be won. It's enough to get across the point that women are socialized into lower paying roles and held back professionally because of child care obligations. My daughter is four. Her summer camp has all sorts of course choices every week. So I signed her up for "little engineers," "little scientists," etc. (There was also pr…

> It's purely parents projecting gender roles onto their kids.

I don't think this statement can be made so strongly. There is certainly debate within the academic community on this topic. For instance this meta analysis[0] found an extremely large gender difference along the "people/thing" dimension, which could easily explain why more men are in STEM.

Of course, the person is not the population, so it's obviously very possible that while on average women tend to be more people-oriented that your daughter is more thing-oriented and drawn to STEM.

But I don't think it's reasonable to generalize from your one experience that gender roles come entirely from parents. It could just be that 1) your daughter would be interested in STEM regardless of how she were raised and 2) at a population level that's less common (which is not to say rare) in daughters than in sons.

[0] 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

#289

Post by arkh » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 12:05 AM 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…

There are even less women in construction or waste management.

But we don't hear as many complains there. My guess? Those jobs are known to be hard. STEM seem like a breeze from outside (that's just office work) but when you work there you realize it may not be physicaly hard but the stress is there. So people who value a better work-life balance decide to get out. People who have the option to decide to not work will do it.

The flip-side of the gender role is the number of articles lately shaming young males who decide to work part-time and enjoy life instead of working for a family. Also, the number of high achieving women who complain about the lack of available good men. Marrying down? That's for the males.

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

#290

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 12:11 AM UTC

lkbm wrote: post #268

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 while being as competent, wouldn't white/male capitalists trip over themselves to only hire women to increase their profits? Here's another claim I've heard many times and never seen refuted (or even challenged): Tall men are paid more than short men (extending into non-physical work such as programming.) A company that recognizes this should hire a bunch of short programmers a…

The advantages of tall people (not just men) has been researched. The research doesn't confirm your assumptions very well.

Part of the reason they get paid more is that they actually are smarter and healthier. Height correlates with good health and a well nutritioned childhood.

More detail here: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/the-fin...