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Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

propublica.org

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Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#111

Post by guelo »

eloff wrote: post #35

Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…

Not sure what your point is, there are a lot of things that would reduce business costs but are illegal.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#112

Post by eloff »

dangus wrote: post #37
eloff wrote: post #35

Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…

“It’s not cost efficient” isn’t a valid reason to discriminate against people, if you ask me. An analogy to your justification: the most cost efficient thing to do with hazardous chemicals is to dump them down the drain.

Yes, that's true. It seems to be illegal, so talking about ROI is really beside the point. And it's a pretty hypothetical situation. I'm just trying to think why the companies might have taken this approach apart from outright discrimination.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#113

Post by viraptor »

eloff wrote: post #35

Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…

> Not because they're less capable, but because there's less of them as a percentage of the population.

I don't get it. FB which is the context here allows you to pay per click. Why would the ROI change if they're just as capable?

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#114

Post by karlakush »

dragonwriter wrote: post #93
aianus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? It’s definitely more profitable that way, but maybe so is the targeting in the article.

> Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? Because car insurance isn't employment, is separately regulated, and does not exclude gender from permissible inputs into actuarial calculations.

That's a complete non-answer. If it's wrong to exclude women from job ads, it's just as wrong to charge men more for car insurance.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#115

Post by manigandham »

gnicholas wrote: post #110
manigandham wrote: post #106

The simple question is: Does everyone have an equal opportunity to this position or not? If you can't even see the ads then the answer is no, and so it's a violation. If there were different ads for different groups but everyone still had the opportunity to see, apply and acquire the position then it's fair game. Perhaps Facebook could improve job ads to allow for more specific targeting but always have a fallback ad…

> The simple question is: Does everyone have an equal opportunity to this position or not? If you can't even see the ads then the answer is no, and so it's a violation. Do these cases involve advertising positions that are not listed elsewhere? Because obviously no company can afford to reach everyone who might be interested in a position. I would agree that selective advertising would be much more of a problem if th…

I'm not sure if there is a perfect answer there. It might be best to scope it down to a certain medium and channel and say that all users on that channel have the ability to either see the ad or browse a directory of all listings.

If Facebook also had a jobs board that anyone can search and find ads where employers aren't paying for impressions then I think that would offset a targeted campaign to select groups.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#116

Post by gnicholas »

Could these legal arguments be extended to lookalike audiences that are built off of email lists that have a gender imbalance? That is, imagine I go to a university to recruit, and I talk with 200 male students and 10 female students. I then take their email addresses and make a lookalike audience to advertise my jobs to. Could that be challenged on the grounds that I am trying to advertise to male students? What if I don't know what goes into the algorithm of creating lookalike audiences — for example, how important gender is versus interests.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#117

Post by karlakush »

chii wrote: post #63
conanbatt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are using the legal definition of discrimination, and I am using the economics definition of discrimination.

and the courts only care about the legal definition.

and this isn't a court.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

gweinberg wrote: post #101
dragonwriter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it legal to charge men more for car insurance? Because car insurance isn't employment, is separately regulated, and does not exclude gender from permissible inputs into actuarial calculations.

You realize you just said "it's legal because it's legal", right?

Well, I mean, if you'd rather a political than a mechanics-of-law explanation as to why the law treats two situations differently mo, it's legal because heterosexual couples plus women outside of such couples combine to form a powerful voting bloc, and gender rating, compared to it's absence with no other change in practice, is a benefit to that group.

Specifically, compared to perfect allocation of costs, it's a small subsidy from people outside of opposite-sex couples to opposite-sex couples, whereas not having gender rating with otherwise status quo policies is a large subsidy from women not in opposite-sex couples to men not in opposite-sex couples.

Under status quo policies, opposite sex couples are in practice fairly free to gender-optimize insurance pricing by putting the less expensive to insure driver as primary on the more expensive to insure vehicle, regardless of actual primary driver.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#119

Post by rayiner »

noobermin wrote: post #102
eloff wrote: post #35

Nothing good can come from sticking my neck out on this, but: If I were paying for advertising for a software engineering position I'd get much better ROI by excluding women and older demographics simply because they're much less likely to be suitable for the job, statistically speaking, when we're talking about the wider population in general and not just software engineers. Not because they're less capable, but bec…

This is why I bemoan the current form of identity politics because it allows an out. "I don't hate women, it's just disadvantageous to me to hire them," or, "I don't hate black people, I just won't rent to them because they statistically commit more crimes." And without an iota of malice in anyone's heart, relevant actors can reproduce the same exact disparities that perpetuate inequality. This is called systemic dis…

> And without an iota of malice in anyone's heart, relevant actors can reproduce the same exact disparities that perpetuate inequality. This is called systemic discrimination.

That’s not systematic discrimination. It’s express discrimination and illegal.

Systemic discrimination results from policies that are facially sex or race neutral, but have a discriminatory impact because of structural discrimination in society. (E.g. not hiring people for having marijuana convictions may be an instance of systemic discrimination if black people are convicted far more often for possession despite using drugs at similar rates to white people.)

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#120

Post by thekashifmalik »

undefined3840 wrote: post #80

The dirty secret of hiring is that employers are always thinking about cost, but how many employees out there think of themselves as a cost to a bottom line? Not many. The most exploitable tech workers are young, single, males on H1-b visas. They will take a low salary and essentially be enslaved to their job because getting fired means getting kicked out of the country. Old workers and women are more “expensive” bec…

My man! Best analysis I've seen.

I'm familiar with the H1B situation and you are very much spot on. Young dudes will work hard, keep their head down and take a terrible salary as long as there is the promise of citizenship at the end of the tunnel.

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