Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#161

Post by Frondo » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

burntwater wrote: post #140

door3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are paid less not because their jobs are worth less, but because employers can get away with paying them leas. There are values other than market value. Society needs both nurses and engineers. Women and men should be equal not just in opportunity, but in outcome (ie, economic power). In addition, women are usually the primary caregiver and disproportionately spend more time doing domestic labour (raising child…

"Women (or whomever is the primary caregiver in a family or does more domestic labor at home) should be paid more for fewer hours in the workplace." Why should anyone be compensated anything for routine life-management work? What you're asking is akin to saying everyone should be paid to sleep. Sleeping, bathing, eating, maintaining the home -- these are all parts of functioning as a human. Taking care of children is…

As a proponent of a universal basic income, I would agree that yes, you should also be paid for sleep.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#162

Post by sudoke » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #84

crispyporkbites wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed if you control for these there’s no gap in the outcome variable (pay) but there is a huge gap in the n variable (number of women). The question to ask then is why does that happen? Are the reasons for that valid? Are equal opportunities available? Do we even want equal opportunities as a society or an individual?

>The question to ask then is why does that happen? Because women, more typically than men, raise children as their full time job.

Are women not better equipped to raise children than men? Clearly yes.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#163

Post by bluGill » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

hermitdev wrote: post #75

mrweasel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly "equal pay" means whatever you want it to mean. At some point the nurses union in Denmark argued that their education was roughly the same length as that of an engineer, so they should be paid the same on that basic. Completely ignoring that engineers spend five years at the university vs. the 3.5 years for nursing school and that engineers are pay wildly different salaries bases on their field of work. In my m…

> In my mind, equal pay is for people doing the exact same job, and the exact same number of hours, but that just my interpretation. Many will use the equal pay term to advocate for a pay rise, because they feel that their line of work is underpaid. I'm with you here, but I think you also missed another point: at the same level of productivity. Equal hours at work doesn't mean equal productivity.

In fact equal hours is not a factor. If one person works 4 hours and gets as much done as another person working 40 hours they are wroth the same.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#164

Post by boffinism » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

sudoke wrote: post #145

logfromblammo wrote: post #120

Real life stubbornly resists all attempts to make it more fair . An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until it's worth revisiting for further improvements. So now that we have the gender pay gap (almost) sorted out, perhaps we should tackle a problem more likely to cause societal problems: the increasing measures of wealth inequality.

Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.

When people talk about wealth inequality as a bad thing they're normally talking about self-perpetuating wealth inequality, or wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into.

A lot of people who have comparative wealth and have worked hard for it feel they have earned their wealth, disregarding the fact that a lot of other people work equally hard and do not have the same amount of wealth. This sort of thing muddies the issue.

Also muddying the issue is the fact that some people think that if X amount of money could lift Y poor people out of poverty, vs making rich person Z marginally richer, it is self-evidently the case that it is better and therefore right for X to be spent on the Y rather than person Z. I.e. as long as some people are below a minimum acceptable level of wealth, all wealth inequality is, in this view, bad.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#165

Post by sudoke » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:27 PM UTC

gluelogic wrote: post #117

icebraining wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions that are more social and have better advancement potential and job security, such as medicine (doctors, surgeoons), law, finance, etc. Why isn't this true of men?

What he is saying is that, generally, given the choice, women will prefer social work to asocial work.

This is the same sexist attitude that got that google employee fired. I suggest you stay off HN and stick to TD with these ideas.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#166

Post by WhompingWindows » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

vinchuco wrote: post #28

I'm bothered by the implicit authority given to the word "study" nowadays. Collecting data and drawing conclusions is much easier than contrasting assumptions for the sake of understanding the underlying issues, yet the former seems much more prevalent in public discourse.

The problem is that science relies on consensus, multiple studies confirming the same finding, whereas most lay readers find a single study and use confirmation bias to put away their critical thinking. Most people will just read science-writing by some news website or even the NYT, which cites a single study. They then synthesize this science writing about a single study as "fact" into their head, when really you need numerous studies and even meta-analyses of studies to establish a fact or theory.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#167

Post by Reedx » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

olavk wrote: post #88

door3 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are paid less not because their jobs are worth less, but because employers can get away with paying them leas. There are values other than market value. Society needs both nurses and engineers. Women and men should be equal not just in opportunity, but in outcome (ie, economic power). In addition, women are usually the primary caregiver and disproportionately spend more time doing domestic labour (raising child…

If women had to be paid more for the same job, it would be irrational for any business to hire women.

Likewise, if businesses could hire women for an N% discount on labor costs, they would hire only women.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#168

Post by Reedx » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #119

crusso wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. In a world of such pervasive intellectual dishonesty, what's the best course of action? While I admire the people and arguments that have the most intellectual integrity, it seems that demagoguery just works better when it comes to shaping public policy. At the end of the day, the problem is that most people (voters) wouldn't even begin to understand or appreciate the distinction between demagoguery and intellec…

The best way around this is to have education. Especially on topics like statistics literacy (not really just statistics, but how to read them), journalism, lobbyism and propaganda. These things should be taught in high school. Taking apart arguments in old propaganda (where there is less political motive) and encouraging people to look out for new propaganda. Of course it doesn't seem the government would be interes…

Statistics literacy would help, but there are a lot of highly educated people who repeat things like the pay gap myth. I think the problem is more about ideology and the lack of critical thought.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#169

Post by ameister14 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #150

ameister14 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also prevent raises.

You're assuming that I'm a world were transparency goes up, good negotiators go extinct? :)

Logically, if I know that in giving one person a raise, everyone will ask for the same raise, I just won't give anyone a raise that isn't negotiated by the entire group, which takes longer and is less likely to occur without conflict.

It actually extends to the whole market, too - if all salaries are transparent, then an RN makes x. They can't make more than that, anywhere they go. It gives a floor, sure - if they get hired, they'll get paid the same as everyone else; it just also makes a ceiling, and, I believe, may slow income growth in general.

Re: Study shows salaries of young women 8% higher than men in peer group (2010)

#170

Post by Reedx » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

PunchTornado wrote: post #77

Malarkey73 wrote: post #7

"He attributes the earnings reversal overwhelmingly to one factor: education. For every two guys who graduate from college or get a higher degree, three women do." It's interesting itself that more women graduate than men. But equal pay means equal pay for people with similar qualifications doing similar jobs. This comparison means nothing to me.

Aren't all gender pay studies like this? When they say women earn 80% less than men they don't take into account qualifications or jobs.

Right, they generally fail to take numerous factors into account. Once you start controlling for things (like choice) the gap quickly shrinks.