Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#111

Post by manicdee » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 11:36 PM UTC

chcknsammich wrote: post #16

manicdee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you walk me through the acquisition process? I am getting lost at that point between “fire all the men” and “hire women with the appropriate experience.”

Let's say you are a small startup owner, and you have enough cash on hand to hire 6 male devs. You then realize you could hire 7 equally competent female devs at the exact same price, all this while still offering more money than their supposed current employer who is underpaying them. If all of this were true the price would shift over time on these margins, and this "gap" would disappear. Why is it that we must con…

Where do you find the 7 equally competent female devs, remembering that retention rate in the market is pretty low thanks to the salary gaps. The women look at the market and see they can get more money for other work, and there’s much less brogrammer culture to contend with, and leave the market.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#112

Post by dragonsngoblins » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

throwaway7312 wrote: post #52

wallace_f wrote: post #2

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with this: If women make $0.70 for every $1.00 a man makes, and women are underrepresented in many lucrative fields, then: an arbitrage opportunity necessarily exists. In other words, if there is systemic sexism, then there exists a profit opportunity for entrepreneurs to buy-up typical companies and replace expensive, scarce male labor with cheaper, less-scarce female labor.

My experience hiring women for our company has been 1.) they often don't want the job, 2.) when they get the job, they often balk at how demanding it is, then 3.) if they do stick around, regardless how much training we give them we end up having to let them go. This is not all female hires; we have women in customer service roles, for example, who outperformed our male hires; the females kept the job, the males did…

What field is your company in? Given that this is HN and going off of a few things you said I am going to assume it is Tech, but I know that is still a pretty big assumption.

However if it is Tech or some similarly male dominated field then of course competent women can charge more because they are more in demand. But that is in those specific fields and doesn't explain away the lack arbitrage opportunity from hiring women in general if they are indeed paid less in general.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#113

Post by x220 » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:51 AM UTC

marchenko wrote: post #105

the_trapper wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The study addressed this. There are sexist gender roles at play even among single parents, potentially. (To wit, you didn’t lament the rise of “single fatherhood.”) Isn't that mostly caused by a sexist judiciary. I know that as a man in America in the event of a divorce it is very unlikely that I would get majority custody of my children. From what I've seen it takes a lot for a woman to lose custody if she wants i…

When I last looked it up, the US data indicated that 91% of custody cases are decided without recourse to the family court system. Of the 9% that go to family court system, 5% are decided after a custody evaluation, and the remaining 4% go to trial. Only 11% of custody cases go to mediation. It appears that the majority of custody decisions are made by the parents themselves, without recourse to the court, or even to…

>the US data indicated that 91% of custody cases are decided without recourse to the family court system

The men know that if it does go to trial, it will cost a lot of money and they will probably still lose the kids. There's no point in playing a rigged game.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#114

Post by sigi45 » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 12:25 PM UTC

pluto9 wrote: post #110

sigi45 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just imagine you work 40h per week and get money $ and it doesn't depend on how hard you push at salary negotiations or what gender you have or if you can make children or how willing you are to do overtime or work on skewed work hours. That doesn't only help woman, that helps everyone.

> That doesn't only help woman, that helps everyone. No, it doesn't help anyone. What if I have a financial emergency and am willing to work overtime for the next month for some extra cash? How exactly am I "helped" by not having the option to do that?

That is not what i'm saying.

But your motivation to spend that extra time in the company should NOT influence any salary negotiation.

Otherwise it brings pressure on all others while redefining what the 'social avg norm' is.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#115

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #107

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. The woman is effectively doing the work for the man (or for herself). She doesn't do the work for nothing, she does it in exchange fo…

She is not working for pay. Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women. So while I agree with your literal words that she does get some benefit and that she could try to find a job, I cannot help but read in to your words as suggesting the situation is fair. And that I completely disagree with.

> She is not working for pay.

If the transaction was formalized so that she was receiving a salary and then paying the same total amount for rent, food, insurance, etc., what difference would that make in practice?

> Her freedom comes from the man she is dependent on. And many feminists found when they tried to work that the job market was, surprise surprise, not welcoming to women.

You are referring to the job market in the early 20th century. This is obviously no longer the case, given that a majority of working-aged women do in fact now work for money.

The argument you would have to make now is that homemaker is a specialized profession that doesn't translate into another profession. Leaving aside whether that's even true (it's easy to prove you know how to cook and there are such jobs in many diners etc.), how is it different than many ordinary professions? If you have ten years experience as a calligrapher when you decide it isn't for you, you can't just instantly jump onto the middle of the career ladder as a mechanical engineer.

Nor is someone who prefers to be a homemaker tied to a specific person. There are many other men (and women) willing to enter into the same kind of arrangement.