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When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

economist.com

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Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#141

Post by randyrand »

Quanttek wrote: post #135

I 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…

>"If we discount all the things creating the pay gap, basically no pay gap exists"

It's called a meritocracy. And its what most people want. People will always want to play the victim card regardless.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#143

Post by swift »

oldboyFX wrote: post #11

Still not sure what to believe on this issue. Some points of discussion are (unrelated to article): 1. If women were 25% cheaper than men while being as competent, wouldn't white/male capitalists trip over themselves to only hire women to increase their profits? 2. Women are less likely to negotiate salary and assert themselves, as women in general are more agreeable than men. Is this behavior based in biology or is…

When you say that women are "more agreeable" than men and "tend to care about people" more than men, you should consider that there is a social expectation that women have these qualities. You should also consider why the link between "lower paying jobs" and "jobs that women tend to choose" exists in the first place, and that "jobs that people of a certain gender tend to choose" is a self-reinforcing notion that limits your options no matter what your gender is.

As for why capitalists don't trip over themselves to hire only women to increase their profits, well, what makes you think they don't, at least in industries where margins are low and there isn't a strong counteracting social force? Take a look at the gender ratio in the notoriously low-margin garment industry, for example.

There has been a lot written on these topics, if you look around. You can learn a lot very quickly if you move beyond the realm of HN comments. =) That might make it easier to decide what to believe.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#144

Post by adamlett »

klipt wrote: post #43
Others wrote: post #28

Earlier 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…

The difference is that it is generally easier to swap money for fulfillment and satisfaction than the other way around.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#145

Post by hackinthebochs »

oldboyFX wrote: post #75
johnfn wrote: post #17

The 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.

Do you think there are biological differences between genders ? For example, is the fact that men tend to negotiate more a social construct, or is it based in biology? Should society tax men for their behavior and redistribute the wealth to women? I'm not arguing for any side by the way. Not sure what to think of this myself.

I think we discount the behavioral effects of testosterone across the board. T is known to increase status-seeking behavior which surely has an influence in career choices.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#146

Post by Consultant32452 »

Others wrote: post #28
darawk wrote: post #22

Earlier 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…

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.

Women seek men with resources to reproduce with. Men tend to only care about youth/fertility. It's not like men can start reproducing with women who are no longer fertile, so they can't possibly lower the bar any further. Since women don't have social pressure to gather resources in order to reproduce, men are going to dominate in higher paying professions. This is similar to the same argument Christopher Hitchens famously made in his Vanity Fair article about why women aren't funny. It's not that women can't be funny, obviously many are. It's that they don't need to be funny to get laid.

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701

If you want to resolve this problem you need to either ask women to lower the bar and not seek men with resources or ask men to raise the bar and demand that women not only be youthful/fertile, but also have resources. Good luck.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#147

Post by disc »

johnnyb9 wrote: post #33
mathperson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. But it isn't really subject to market forces the way software engineering is. A better teacher doesn't bring in more revenue and profit for a public school. Most teachers work in public schools. I am not disagreeing with you in general (I am not taking a stand either way) but this is a pretty silly example.

So they are valuable, so long as you don't value them with money.

Is the system setup to value them with money? Can a parent walk into a school and agree to higher property taxes if their kid is placed in a specific teacher's classroom?

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#149

Post by dionidium »

rayiner wrote: post #97

The "for the same work" piece of it rings hollow and is fighting a battle that didn't need to be won. It's enough to get across the point that women are socialized into lower paying roles and held back professionally because of child care obligations. My daughter is four. Her summer camp has all sorts of course choices every week. So I signed her up for "little engineers," "little scientists," etc. (There was also pr…

"These are four year olds, they have no preferences. It's purely parents projecting gender roles onto their kids."

Without litigating this specific case in any detail, I just want to argue more generally that of course 4-year-olds (and much younger) have gender-based preferences and that there is loads of research confirming this. It's remarkable that this is considered even remotely controversial.

Re: When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears

#150

Post by swift »

oldboyFX wrote: post #88
Jare wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see how all these surprising facts where people are doing things that go against their best interest, can be explained by irrational but strong forces such as sexism?

I understand, but blaming it on irrational sexism in the ether doesn't help us fix the problem. It's not an actionable piece of information.

It's more actionable than you might think. Attitudes can be changed - by social pressure, through the media, and through education. And while legislation may not directly change attitudes, it can also help create pressures that reshape them indirectly.
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