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Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

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Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#221

Post by wisty »

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…

Alternatively, it's because of benevolent sexism. Women aren't slobs if they want to kick back and watch day-time TV while watching kids, they're doing the hardest job in the world!

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#222

Post by cortesoft »

jrock08 wrote: post #83
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I explain my issue with this question. >How it is more often foisted upon women? I show that there is an equal pressure put on men to do different things. My issue is with the "more often". Now, maybe you were only talking about the pressure on women and not the pressure on men... you should be able to see the issue with this as well.

Except that we are talking about why women on average don't make as much during their careers. You are punting and saying, well men have pressure to work more. You are absolutely right, and it should be part of the conversation, but you've not somehow proved that the women being encouraged to prioritize family isn't a problem.

Those pressures are not independent. Any time you say "women are pressured" to do something, there is an implicit "relative to men" added at the end. The same goes for the reverse.

Think about it this way - there are two constant, fixed pressures we are talking about: the pressure to make good money to raise a family, and the pressure to take care of the kids.

We have no way to change the TOTAL pressure - both of those things are fairly fixed (we need to make money and we need to take care of family). The thing we are talking about is HOW those pressures are distributed. Traditionally, the money pressure is more on men and the childrearing pressure is more on women. You can't change any one of those without changing the rest. If you decrease pressure on women to raise children, that in turn raises pressure on men to raise children. This, in turn, would also increase pressure on women to make money, and decrease the pressure on men.

You can choose which angle you come at for the problem, but all of them result in the same thing.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#223

Post by djhn »

randyrand wrote: post #211
RodericDay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea of "mandatory paternity leave", to make up for the biological asymmetry. Even if you have a stereotypical breadwinner/housewife relationship, you are legally mandated to take time off, even if you don't want to. That way you avoid the "you're allowed to take paternal leave, but real go-getters don't!" game altogether. edit: The way I see it, the responses just prove my point. "This would just make peo…

How far are you willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of a few percentage points increase in your so called "equality." You need to get your priorities aligned. This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

> randyrand

> This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

Is this an attempt to make novelty accounts a thing on HN?

Or more seriously, on a scale of 1-10, how much tongue in cheek is in that assessment?

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#224

Post by CWuestefeld »

hnal943 wrote: post #161
shostack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beat me to it. The episode is basically an interview with Claudia Goldin who is about as qualified a person as you could hope for to speak on this matter. [1] tl;dr women start out with equal pay, but trade pure monetary compensation for flexibility and/or fewer hours when they have kids because society still sucks at gender equality when it comes to enabling parents to equally contribute to certain aspects of parent…

I don't understand why we want a society where everyone is trying to both parent and work full time. Specialization is a powerful tool. Speaking personally it makes a lot more sense for my wife to stay home and have primary responsibility for raising our kids and managing our household while I focus on my career. Implicit in this discussion is that the woman who choose flexibility and child-rearing options are oppres…

I don't see anyone on this thread saying that a family must have two breadwinners. I think the argument is that the opportunity should be there, so anyone can follow the career path that best supports their chosen family roles.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#225

Post by cortesoft »

hnal943 wrote: post #161
shostack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beat me to it. The episode is basically an interview with Claudia Goldin who is about as qualified a person as you could hope for to speak on this matter. [1] tl;dr women start out with equal pay, but trade pure monetary compensation for flexibility and/or fewer hours when they have kids because society still sucks at gender equality when it comes to enabling parents to equally contribute to certain aspects of parent…

I don't understand why we want a society where everyone is trying to both parent and work full time. Specialization is a powerful tool. Speaking personally it makes a lot more sense for my wife to stay home and have primary responsibility for raising our kids and managing our household while I focus on my career. Implicit in this discussion is that the woman who choose flexibility and child-rearing options are oppres…

This is totally fine, as long as society supports any specialization choice (men or women taking either role). As long as we support both choices equally, it doesn't matter if one gender ends up doing one of the roles more than the other.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#226

Post by EGreg »

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…

I think both men and women should stop automatically buying into the idea that your career goals should involve having inflexible hours working some high status position for some corporation. Most pay inequality in our society comes from the assumption that women are better primary caregivers for children than men, so they get custody of the children. Many men complain about this, as well, but as long as it's going to be the norm in most states, women's pay will be lower.

Why not have a flexible work schedule for both spouses, so they can raise their children? Better yet, in traditional societies (including Soviet Russia), the grandma often watched the kids instead of some teenage babysitter. The kids grew up with more respect for elders that way. Not only that, but the grandparents weren't shipped off to some nursing home so the adults could work two jobs unimpeded.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#227

Post by Chefkoochooloo »

It is a very interesting article, but I wonder if companies would show the average Gender hiring when it comes to applicants. Sure, a man with the same skills could've gotten the job, but what if there were 5 women who also applied with the same skill set? It just depends on the way that you view the situation. Different perspective, in my opinion.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#228

Post by dalke »

fche wrote: post #194
dalke wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you've clarified that statement "Wage disparity is caused by gender roles, not by discrimination" is incomplete, and that you accept that historical wage disparity included discrimination on the basis of sex. However, your response is less than complete. What is "modern day"? For example, "DU Law School is violating Equal Pay Act"/"The University of Denver is violating federal law by paying female law profes…

The EEOC only indicated _disparity_, and because it's a governmental political bully, it got to turn that into an accusation of discrimination. Logic not necessary.

You are of course free to reject any data points you disagree with.

It is unfair, however, to give no guidelines of what you think might be acceptable.

For example, if "modern" means "occurred within the last six months", then we have to look towards anecdotes and accusations, as court cases and rigorous scientific research take far longer than that.

If "modern" means ten years, then it's easy to find court cases like http://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa-woman-wins-lawsuit-agains... where the wage discrimination happened in 2009, and http://www.startribune.com/norway-asked-to-pay-2-3-million-i... where it happened in 2008.

That said, if you only accept tried court cases as evidence then you've placed a laughably high barrier. Court case 1) have a high burden of proof, 2) are rare, 3) rarely go to completion and are often settled out of court, and 4) make take years to complete. Thus, almost by definition they will not be from discrimination which happened within the last year or two.

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#229

Post by Nadya »

RodericDay wrote: post #219
randyrand wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far are you willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of a few percentage points increase in your so called "equality." You need to get your priorities aligned. This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

I'm actually Canadian, and I was astonished to find, in this very thread, that in the USA you don't even offer paid maternity leave . Enjoy!

>I'm actually Canadian, and I was astonished to find, in this very thread, that in the USA you don't even offer paid maternity leave

This varies from company to company. It isn't legally required, but the company I work for offers 6 months paid parental leave and it is encouraged you take it to spend time with your newborn/spouse and adjust to the new life. There are a lot of married couples in the office and both parents are allowed to take it together.

Most companies that my friends work for offer paid maternity leave ranging from 3 to 12 months. Generally paternal leave is the one that is never offered, or if it is offered, it's subtly discouraged against actually using it (you want that much-needed promotion now that you have a newborn, don't you? better work harder and not take time off!)

Re: Study Finds No Gender Gap in Tech Salaries

#230

Post by jsf666 »

abraca wrote: post #139
varjag wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually in the name. You are a resource for a purchasing department. I can't understand how people come to assume HR is on their side: it's not a union.

Yeah I (wrongly) figured that HR would do scans of salaries based on gender, race, disability etc to make sure there were no statistically significant differences that could lead to ammo in a lawsuit situation.

Yeah, fuck skill, experience and other factors when all we need is "diversity"
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