Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men • Hacker News Board

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#21

Post by Brian_K_White » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #16

_qbxi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women choose less lucrative careers "Choose" is perhaps technically true, but misleading. Women are generally pressured out of lucrative careers. Remember that programming started as a woman-dominated field (due to perceived proximity to typing as the fundamental skill), which is how so many pioneers and influential figures ended up being women (Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton). Women were ultimately pushed out as…

This doesn't match what I experienced growing up in the 90's. What I saw saw was girls not wanting to involve themselves with computing because it was seen as nerdy and boring and for weird people. Only when people started realizing how much FAANG's paid and how nice the benefits were did they start feeling they wanted to get in on that. Those are just my personal observations though.

True enough for the 90's, but the 90's came long after they were pushed out in the 60's & 70's. That's an entire generation of seperation. It's en entirely different world.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#22

Post by delusional » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

If woman really are getting paid less for the same work as men wouldn't employers do the arbitrage of hiring women instead of men?

I like contextualizing that question using a tool Matt Levine wrote about to understand the problem of doing fundamental analysis for a short sale. Winning a short position requires two things. The obvious one is that it requires something to be overvalued. If we posit that women are paid less, which is what your argument does, we have covered the first condition. The second thing required is a way for the market to become aware of this discrepancy. That would be the missing piece. Companies/Managers/Founders are the ones valuing the work. If they value the work less when a woman does it, then something has to change that valuation. It won't correct by itself.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#23

Post by bigstrat2003 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:48 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

If woman really are getting paid less for the same work as men wouldn't employers do the arbitrage of hiring women instead of men?

Yes, which is why that theory is very unlikely to be true. Even if employers were such committed sexists that they only employed men to their detriment, they would eventually get outcompeted by less sexist competitors who hired a cheaper (yet just as effective) workforce.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#24

Post by steveBK123 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #11

mdorazio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, women get paid the same as men, within the error of measurement, and have for many years. The trope of women making less than men comes from an apples to oranges comparison. Women choose less lucrative careers, leave the workforce more often to care for children, and care more about work-life balance. The result is that on average across the workforce, women make less. But if you look at an individual car…

Additionally, many women are not mimicking their competition in how the career ladder is approached. There is a fear of coming across as too assertive within the organization she is already employed in . What’s understated is that plenty of men come across as too cocky too and get passed up within the organization and at other organizations. But some men, with the societal incentive to get ahead, continues aiming hig…

Yes I have this conversation with women sometimes where it's like "but if I am assertive and ask for money, my boss will judge me" type of societal norm compliance.

And look, maybe they will, but are they going to fire you or cut your pay? No.

You don't ask, you don't get.. that is the way of the world. If you constantly try to play it safe, you get less.

If you clip your own wings you can't point vaguely at "society" for it.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#25

Post by rayiner » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:49 PM UTC

lstamour wrote: post #15

mdorazio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, women get paid the same as men, within the error of measurement, and have for many years. The trope of women making less than men comes from an apples to oranges comparison. Women choose less lucrative careers, leave the workforce more often to care for children, and care more about work-life balance. The result is that on average across the workforce, women make less. But if you look at an individual car…

Isn’t it possible though, that if a role is gender stereotyped or if senior managers are a particular gender, that those of the other gender might need to prove themselves more to get the same job? That managers tend to hire people who appear to fit in, which usually means they are more like themselves, or those who already have the job? Also, it seems weird to suggest that only women have the failings you’ve noted,…

> Also, it seems weird to suggest that only women have the failings you’ve noted, as men can also have the same shortcomings.

Why would you portray these as “shortcomings?” E.g. my wife is probably counted as part of the income disparity between men and women, because after our third child she decided she didn’t want to keep working. The choice to do that wasn’t unweighted random coin flip as between the two of us. Indeed, she wouldn’t have married me if she perceived there was a possibility I’d want to quit my demanding full time job and be the primary caregiver.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#26

Post by Dracophoenix » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

_qbxi wrote: post #12

mdorazio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, women get paid the same as men, within the error of measurement, and have for many years. The trope of women making less than men comes from an apples to oranges comparison. Women choose less lucrative careers, leave the workforce more often to care for children, and care more about work-life balance. The result is that on average across the workforce, women make less. But if you look at an individual car…

> Women choose less lucrative careers "Choose" is perhaps technically true, but misleading. Women are generally pressured out of lucrative careers. Remember that programming started as a woman-dominated field (due to perceived proximity to typing as the fundamental skill), which is how so many pioneers and influential figures ended up being women (Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton). Women were ultimately pushed out as…

> Women were ultimately pushed out as the field gained perceived prestige.

They weren't pushed out so much as the nature of the market for programming changed from office work and military projects to personal computers and applications in the 1970s.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#27

Post by weakfish » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

dude250711 wrote: post #18

[flagged]

This is just flame bait that doesn’t add to the conversation

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#28

Post by yieldcrv » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

chowells wrote: post #17

yieldcrv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Increasingawlesaness Come again?

Eh, that's an easy typo to make on a phone when you're used to autocorrect getting things right. Sometimes you miss when it doesn't. That's not the incoherent part of GP, which is the part where they somehow seem to believe women are favored (?!) by current power structures and that favor will increase as those structures turn towards might-makes-right policies.

I just want to know what they meant, I know it’s a typo, I can’t infer it

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#29

Post by dijit » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #5

khelavastr wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> Increasingawlesaness Come again?

Likely it was "Increasing Awareness"; "Increasing awareness favors women, and men don't have the legal support to see justice."

They're probably commenting on the idea that there is a stronger push to get women into companies for quota requirements, where the same is not true for men, and any injustice in hiring for women is likely rectified whereas it is not likely to be met charitably for men.

I'm not sure what I personally believe here.

Re: Rising graduate joblessness is mainly affecting men

#30

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 6:57 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #8

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

If woman really are getting paid less for the same work as men wouldn't employers do the arbitrage of hiring women instead of men?

In general, women get paid the same as men, within the error of measurement, and have for many years. The trope of women making less than men comes from an apples to oranges comparison. Women choose less lucrative careers, leave the workforce more often to care for children, and care more about work-life balance. The result is that on average across the workforce, women make less. But if you look at an individual car…

If I said most developers upset about the balance of equities between labor and company founders had chosen the less lucrative career of not being a founder, do you think that would resolve the concern for most people?