Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries • Hacker News Board

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#11

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:00 PM UTC

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #8

Controlling for "job title" basically makes this invalid; if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level and consequently making more that is obviously a gender gap. Edit: "invalid" is maybe a strong word for the study itself - the headline "no wage gap exists" is definitely invalid, but the actual results are interesting.

>if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level

Instead of shifting the goal post, form a hypothesis that men are promoted more even when you control for factors such as education, experience, and work life balance, and then see if that is the case.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#12

Post by zaphar » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:00 PM UTC

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #8

Controlling for "job title" basically makes this invalid; if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level and consequently making more that is obviously a gender gap. Edit: "invalid" is maybe a strong word for the study itself - the headline "no wage gap exists" is definitely invalid, but the actual results are interesting.

It doesn't make it invalid. It just points to where the real issues lie. Something you need to know if you intend to actually fix anything.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#13

Post by TTPrograms » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #8

Controlling for "job title" basically makes this invalid; if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level and consequently making more that is obviously a gender gap. Edit: "invalid" is maybe a strong word for the study itself - the headline "no wage gap exists" is definitely invalid, but the actual results are interesting.

Or it means that another study has to be written demonstrating that promotion is sexist? It's critical to understand these issues in depth if you want to fix them. Writing it off as invalid because it doesn't align with your worldview is the worst way to ensure that we never properly fix things.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#14

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #8

Controlling for "job title" basically makes this invalid; if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level and consequently making more that is obviously a gender gap. Edit: "invalid" is maybe a strong word for the study itself - the headline "no wage gap exists" is definitely invalid, but the actual results are interesting.

If.

That may be happening, if those doing the promoting are biased. (Which means, in some places, it probably is happening that way.)

Systematically, though? Industry-wide? Is this really happening?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#15

Post by ahoy » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity.

Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a few years after that. Women tend to find themselves funneled into specific career paths that prioritize flexible hours and often pay less. Men face an opposite pressure - toward inflexible hours but higher pay. This is in large part because care for family members(children and elderly parents usually) is more often foisted upon women in our society than on men.

That doesn't mean the "gender gap" doesn't exist, or that it isn't an issue to address. It means that the way we tackle it isn't as simple as "pass a law mandating equal pay for equal work".

We need to de-stigmatize flexible schedules. We need to upend the idea that family care is solely the domain of women (normalizing parental leave for fathers with newborns is a good start).

*edited for typos

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#16

Post by samd » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

That's good news if true, the women who make it and get promoted earn the same as their counterparts. Still lots of work to be done removing the barriers that keep them from getting these jobs and promotions in the first place.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#17

Post by wahlis » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

jonesb6 wrote: post #4

"No salary gap exists between women and men in tech, says job search firm Dice, looking at its annual survey of 16,000 tech professionals, as long as you are comparing people with equal experience, education, and job titles. That, of course, is a big if. And previous data from Dice found about a $10,000 pay gap between men and women if not controlled for those factors. Dice’s president, Bob Melk, in a letter to the m…

It would be interesting to see what the results are if they remove the constraint of job title.

A tech organization probably has more similar salaries for the same types of jobs than many other types of business does.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#18

Post by ultramancool » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

ahoy wrote: post #15

This is fairly consistent with other studies. The "77%" number is arrived at by comparing the median wage of full-time male & female employees. It doesn't account for differences in industry, job title, experience, etc. It's super broad. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, but it means we need more granularity. Coming out of uni/grad school, male and female salaries are equal in comparable fields. They depart a fe…

Here's a really interesting freakonomics radio episode that goes into some good detail here if anyone's curious where these differences really originate:

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#19

Post by WalterSear » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:04 PM UTC

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #8

Controlling for "job title" basically makes this invalid; if men are being promoted more often at the same experience/education level and consequently making more that is obviously a gender gap. Edit: "invalid" is maybe a strong word for the study itself - the headline "no wage gap exists" is definitely invalid, but the actual results are interesting.

This is what a witch hunt looks like - conclusions first, then we go find the facts that support it.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#20

Post by Lawtonfogle » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #10

bobby_9x wrote: post #7

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good discussion. These facts have been out for at least 5 years now and nobody cares.

I'm confused by your comment. Facts should either support a discussion and foster it's continuation, or, it should shut down a discussion until new facts are presented. We COULD all still be talking about how square the earth is, but I think we've moved on to more fruitful discussions after the facts shut that one down. Speaking in an entirely abstract sense, discussions should halt if facts don't support it. I'm ope…

>I'm confused by your comment.

I took their comment to be commentary on how there is still an insistence by many in society that there exists a gender gap even when many studies have given evidence that the gap is explained by a variety of factors such as work life balance.

It would be nice if the discussion could move onto issues such as why there is a gender difference in work life balance desires, in hours of overtime worked, in work place death rates, etc. But we still seem to be stuck having to explain that the earth doesn't have four corners.