Personally I think the biggest caveat avoided "when job differences are accounted for" is the care of children. Women, by-and-large, really get hosed with the negative externalities of having children (time off, career halting, etc). Most Western countries are not generous or equitable by half, and the USA is downright savage.
When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
131–140 of 362 posts
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, imagine a scenario where women are initially not in the labor force. But they want to work, same as anyone Then, one day, society changes. "You can work, but you can only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary". You don't think there'd be a supply glut driving down wages in those areas? Suppressing them over a long period as women gradually enter the labor force there? And by the same token, that society that says y…
Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?
They are certainly heavily pushed into those fields.
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.
That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.
Studies have demonstrated that women who negotiate are less likely to get what they are want and are more likely to be punished for it.
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, imagine a scenario where women are initially not in the labor force. But they want to work, same as anyone Then, one day, society changes. "You can work, but you can only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary". You don't think there'd be a supply glut driving down wages in those areas? Suppressing them over a long period as women gradually enter the labor force there? And by the same token, that society that says y…
Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?
No, he is not. He is talking of the long-term side-effects of historic sexism.
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#135I hate these kinds of statistics because all they say is "If we discount all the things creating the pay gap, basically no pay gap exists". Industries typically inhabited by women getting paid less? Predominantly male/female industries suddnely decreasing/increasing in average pay when women/men enter it? Women having a lesser likelihood of getting promoted? Women having a lower likelihood of getting hired for higher-paying positions (recruiter biases)? Those are some of the reasons
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.
Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers based on pay. Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative. Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are less fulfilled and satisfied by their…
Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth.
Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of themselves.
There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#137The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job differences go away, because the job differences are the pay gap. A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. It embarrasses me to see this on HN.
A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid.
Teachers are underpaid? According to whom? Mid-career teachers make roughly the median household income in the U.S. (and with summers off).
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conceptio…
Pay and prestige of educators has diminished as it has become more female dominated. This is a pattern seen across many industries when they shift from male dominated to female dominated. This suggests that there is a relationship between gender distributions in a job and its prestige and value given by society. Not all jobs have direct "money in, money out" relations that you can use to judge value. This opens the d…
Women have been the majority of teachers in the US for over a hundred years
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
And job differences are individual decisions. We can finally stop the "women are being paid less/discriminated ...yadayada..." -horseshit. Teaching is done/funded by the society in most cases and paid with tax dollars. Some jobs being "underpaid" or paid too much are problems that come from the lack of real capitalism where everybody would be paid their actual market value and we could remove the whole word "underpai…
Isn't capitalism about the use of capital to control and manage markets? If I will £5m on the lottery and then set up a company investing that money am I worth the 4% a year I should (probably would) make? The value of your teachers (or lack of value) will only become apparent over time - a long time. The value of your doctor may become absolute to you, several times over your life. God forbid that you or yours fall…
While I never said societies should implement full 100% free market capitalism, all the problems that you mentioned cannot exists in that system.
Free uninterrupted competition will destroy people/companies overpricing their services or force them to compete as well => lower their prices. Basically, offering poor/expensive service in capitalist system will naturally invite competition until the optimal price/value point has been reached.
But like I said, that works in pure free market capitalism, which no politician would ever want to try because it would take power from them and give it to the people and markets.
Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how it's "embarrassing" for this article to be on HN. It addresses your point exactly in the first few paragraphs: "These numbers do not show that the labour market is free of sex discrimination. However, they do suggest that the main problem today is not unequal pay for equal work, but whatever it is that leads women to be in lower-ranking jobs at lower-paying organisations."
That's not my point, though. My essential argument is that sexism creeps in when you say that women select lower-ranking jobs by default. I don't think that's actually true. I think it's more that society views the jobs women work as lower-ranking.
But there's no reason to think that when you consider that jobs generally considered "women's work" require (relatively) less education, or aren't inherently dangerous or physically demanding. There is a glut of supply so the market value of those jobs drops.
Consider nursing which is relatively high paying precisely because of the education requirements, specialization, and difficulty of the work. Wages are even rising now because of the shortage. Market forces explain the salary distributions much easier than sexism collectively driving down prices against market forces.