Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 362 posts

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

#291

Post by micahbright »

throwaway2229 wrote: post #170
hacknat wrote: post #131

Personally I think the biggest caveat avoided "when job differences are accounted for" is the care of children. Women, by-and-large, really get hosed with the negative externalities of having children (time off, career halting, etc). Most Western countries are not generous or equitable by half, and the USA is downright savage.

Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. In a married family, the husband compensates. If the woman is unmarried, she gets child support/alimony to make up the difference. So, either you're arguing that child support/alimony is too low, or that married couples get hosed with the externality of having children. This is recognized in law, and people with children get tax deductions, and if…

I feel for you getting down-voted. Clearly a logical cogent reply.

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

#292

Post by mcappleton »

This whole debate about gender pay is based on the flawed assumption that marriage is not an integral part of human society. Humanity has functioned since time immemorial with marriage as a fundamental human institution. Sure, it's not honored in many cases, but by and large it is a part of human social fabric. Today, however, we are experimenting with disposing of time tested marital roles, instead expecting both spouses to do the same things. Business 101 would instruct you to pick a partner with an opposite skill set from what you have and each work on what they are good at. Yet today we reduce efficiency by having both man and woman split both tasks, or worse, do the task both by him or herself.

It's time that we start considering the family as a unit again.

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

#293

Post by randyrand »

Quanttek wrote: post #239
randyrand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If we discount all the things creating the pay gap, basically no pay gap exists" It's called a meritocracy. And its what most people want. People will always want to play the victim card regardless.

So you're saying that women are just worse in everything?

Or have different goals. Both are reasonable explanations.

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

#294

Post by Powerofmene »

scythe wrote: post #182
bitexploder wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Negotiation starts from a base point though. It is exceptionally difficult to right a lifetime of wrong. By that I mean, women with work experience have lower salaries from the get go and when negotiating for pay at a new employer she starts with a lower pay history than males. Most employers will not jump a salary from say $78,000 to $100,000 AND most women are fearful of pricing themselves out by asking for such a jump. For those who will ask will rarely get the salary they deserve but may make up a little ground is they have been underpaid for an extended period of time.

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

#295

Post by micahbright »

FT_intern wrote: post #256
danharaj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article uses the definition that "same rank" == "same work", which is ridiculous for many reasons, one in particular being that title often corresponds to a pay level for an area of work covered by a ladder of such titles so by definition it will be true that such a gap is insignificant. > According to data for 8.7m employees worldwide gathered by Korn Ferry, a consultancy, women in Britain make just 1% less than…

It's not ridiculous because the alternative is almost impossible to quantify and calculate

It's easy, just like the income tax. Get into every nook and cranny of how things are done and control absolutely everything.

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

#296

Post by randyrand »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #277
randyrand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"If we discount all the things creating the pay gap, basically no pay gap exists" It's called a meritocracy. And its what most people want. People will always want to play the victim card regardless.

Language is funny. The term 'meritocracy' entered the popular lexicon with the publishing of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy , a satirical work that lampooned the idea. But the term was adopted seriously and has persisted. I think it's self-evident that the notion accomplishes nothing, rather just kicks the can to a debate over what you consider meritorious.

That's still a much simpler debate, at least morally. As far as pay is concerned merit is how much money you are paid in a competitive, free market.

I think it's best to focus on two types of merit. There is potential merit ( how much you could be making ) and capturing merit ( how good you are at capturing your potential merit ).

let's take an example. If there are two hotdogs sellers on the street and they sell the exact same hot dogs at the exact same location but one charges two dollars and the other charges four dollars - and the guy who charges more ends up making more money. does the guy who gets paid more have more merit ? yes. they have the same amount of potential merit but the guy who knows the correct price to charge has more capturing merit.

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

#297

Post by micahbright »

coldtea wrote: post #21
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…

> This rigged need to prove the same work is being paid the same always rings pretty hollow for me. That's not about "the same work being paid the same" in general. Individual businesses can pay more or less for the same tasks, even the same business can pay people differently for the same task. Senior employees might be paid more while junior employees do all the real work, etc. Those things are true. But this artic…

>But this article is not about that

It seems like the article is actually precisely about that. If the authors didn't take these factors into account, their findings would be useless.

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

#298

Post by Powerofmene »

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…

No they will not trip over themselves to only hire women to increase their profits. Remember, women take maternity leave; they must stay home when the kids are sick; etc. If they had a workforce of women then men I have worked with in the past would talk about the lack of stability in that workforce because of the extended leave time that women take that men do not typically require and or utilize.

Further women choose teachers, based on a number of studies, because they want to be home in the summer with their children and because they want to nurture. The one thing that most school systems do that is go is they have a pay matrix that determines pay on a step system where education and years of experience determine your pay scale and gender is not a factor. The downside to this pay system is that high performers make the same as sub par performers.

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

#299

Post by micahbright »

xxSparkleSxx wrote: post #219
fiatjaf wrote: post #77

Perhaps companies who hire more women are companies that pay less generally. They are hiring women because they are cheaper. Perhaps jobs that pay less are less attractive to men who can be better paid at some other job, so these jobs attract more women. If the above is true, then there is indeed a "pay gap", but it is not the consequence of any systemic sexism.

Spitballing, but I have read that when an industry begins to be dominated by women the average wages decrease and when they are dominated by men the average wages increase. This could be due to women being less likely to negotiate salary which has an effect not only on themselves but on every other worker in the industry. So a woman in a female-dominated industry may suffer not only from their own negotiation tactics…

>This could be due to women being less likely to negotiate salary which has an effect not only on themselves but on every other worker in the industry.

It could also be due to men leaving industries that have ongoing lowering of wages.

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

#300

Post by micahbright »

grillvogel wrote: post #14
danharaj wrote: post #4

> Although the average woman’s salary in Britain is 29% lower than the average man’s, the bulk of that gap results from differences in rank within companies, firms’ overall compensation rates and the nature of the tasks a job requires. If Software Engineer II makes less than Software Engineer III, and women of equivalent skill and experience to men have a significantly higher chance of being Software Engineer II than…

yeah this pretty much invalidates any conclusions they are trying to reach. i've noticed at my company that competent women seem to be stuck at the same title for a pretty long time.

I haven't. Just wanted to add my anecdote, so that it gets counted when they do a meta-study of hacker news comments.
Post reply on HN