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

The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

web.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#11

Post by beisner »

little_data wrote: post #7

"Furthermore, while Uber now allows riders to tip their drivers in-app, this did not become available until June 2017, which is outside the scope of our data. We do not believe that cash tips – which were possible before in-app tipping – had a material impact on driver earnings." The study did not have any actual tip data for drivers. Tipping was always an option in Uber before June 2017, it just became mandatory for…

Anecdotally, nobody I know ever tipped an Uber driver before tipping was introduced in the app, so there being a negligible tipping component would not surprise me at all.

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#13

Post by neveroffensive »

pbiggar wrote: post #12

So the service can be unbiased, but the society/system it exists in will still be biased.

> but the society/system it exists in will still be biased

Is biased even the right word here? Maybe I'm just nit-picking, but bias implies some level of intention IMHO. The "bias" here is really just the coincidental effects of nature.

I'd say it's more like, "So the service can be unbiased, but trends will inevitably emerge from natural arbitrary properties of the system".

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#14

Post by malchow »

pbiggar wrote: post #12

So the service can be unbiased, but the society/system it exists in will still be biased.

My read of the study is that it more or less proves the opposite: the wage gap is the result of women having such powerfully different preferences that it shows up even when we know discrimination is impossible.

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#15

Post by neveroffensive »

prepend wrote: post #2

This is interesting. What interventions can be made to reduce this pay gap? With the reasons in the paper, should this gap be corrected (eg, force maximum speed, pay higher for slow drivers but only gender specific, etc etc).

> What interventions can be made to reduce this pay gap?

This is a scary question to me. Is making arbitrary changes to align the world more with your definition of fairness really a good idea? Isn't this the precursor to authoritarian/totalitarian thinking? People chose to drive faster, people chose to prefer faster rides, neither of these things are "wrong" in any way. The market is simply rewarding those who provide service which is most desirable. I'm not saying it's fair, but it's not unfair in a way we should try and control IMHO. Any human attempts to correct the arbitrary injustice/unfairness in nature are only bound to shift/perpetuate it.

Edit:

My point really is, nature is evil, but by making choices ourselves which harm others to decrease natures evil, we become evil ourselves. It's the classic trolley/surgeon problem. I argue it's better not to flip the switch on the track and let nature take it's course because otherwise you become the arbiter, and a murderer. It seems more heartless with the trolley problem, but it's conforms to intuition with the surgeon scenario.

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#16

Post by konschubert »

Here is the money quote:

> We can explain the entire gap with three factors. First, through the logic of compensating differentials, hourly earnings on Uber vary predictably by location and time of week, and men tend to drive in more lucrative locations. The second factor is work experience. Even in the relatively simple production of a passenger’s ride, past experience is valuable for drivers. A driver with more than 2,500 lifetime trips completed earns 14% more per hour than a driver who has completed fewer than 100 trips in her time on the platform, in part because she learn where to drive, when to drive, and how to strategically cancel and accept trips. Male drivers accumulate more experience than women by driving more each week and being less likely to stop driving with Uber. Because of these returns to experience and because the typical male Uber driver has more experience than the typical female—putting them higher on the learning curve—men earn more money per hour. The residual gender earnings gap that persists after controlling for these two factors can be explained by a single variable: average driving speed.

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#17

Post by pbiggar »

malchow wrote: post #14
pbiggar wrote: post #12

So the service can be unbiased, but the society/system it exists in will still be biased.

My read of the study is that it more or less proves the opposite: the wage gap is the result of women having such powerfully different preferences that it shows up even when we know discrimination is impossible.

You are letting my point sail over you.

How do women come to those "powerfully different preferences"? Do we think that all women got together and decided to only drive at less valuable times?

Or is it more likely that there are systemic/societal reasons why women as a group pick less-valuable times to drive?

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#18

Post by Geeek »

pbiggar wrote: post #17
malchow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read of the study is that it more or less proves the opposite: the wage gap is the result of women having such powerfully different preferences that it shows up even when we know discrimination is impossible.

You are letting my point sail over you. How do women come to those "powerfully different preferences"? Do we think that all women got together and decided to only drive at less valuable times? Or is it more likely that there are systemic/societal reasons why women as a group pick less-valuable times to drive?

Can it be systemic yet not societal? Like biological origins?

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#19

Post by pbiggar »

Geeek wrote: post #18
pbiggar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are letting my point sail over you. How do women come to those "powerfully different preferences"? Do we think that all women got together and decided to only drive at less valuable times? Or is it more likely that there are systemic/societal reasons why women as a group pick less-valuable times to drive?

Can it be systemic yet not societal? Like biological origins?

Yeah, I've heard women are biologically programmed to prefer earning less money.

JFC, listen to yourself...

Re: The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf]

#20

Post by mc32 »

fatjokes wrote: post #3
prepend wrote: post #2

This is interesting. What interventions can be made to reduce this pay gap? With the reasons in the paper, should this gap be corrected (eg, force maximum speed, pay higher for slow drivers but only gender specific, etc etc).

> pay higher for slow drivers but only gender specific ... that's wage discrimination and is illegal.

Illegal or not it would certainly be gamed.
Post reply on HN