Live data from Hacker News

Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

nytimes.com

241–250 of 626 posts

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#241

Reminiscent of Simpson's Paradox, the most famous example being a gender discrimination lawsuit alleging UC Berkeley discriminated against women in admissions (57% men vs. 43% women). It turned out there WAS bias - in favor of the women! "The lawsuit triggered a study. The study results showed that not only were women not discriminated against, but that women had a statistically significant advantage! Here’s what hap…

We had something similar in France. There was enough people saying and believing that (ethnic) minorities are discriminated for employment to trigger a governmental supported study on the use of anonymous CV. The conclusion was that minorities were even less likely to get an interview with anonymized CV and were actually positivity discriminated against. Authors of study supposed that it is because some issues in the…

Same experiment, same result in Australia:

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-...

In a bid to eliminate sexism, thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs

The trial found assigning a male name to a candidate made them 3.2 per cent less likely to get a job interview.

Adding a woman's name to a CV made the candidate 2.9 per cent more likely to get a foot in the door.

...

Leaders of the Australian public service will today be told to "hit pause" on blind recruitment trials.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salary transparency is not possible and would be highly misleading because jobs are not standardized. A "senior Java developer" can be anything. Then you would have to provide a job description in a comparable format for every salary which is not trivial, if feasible at all. Salary transparency without job descriptions would be akin to showing house prices without describing house details - location, square footage,…

Why not? Just publish who makes how much money. That’s it.

If all salaries are transparent, you get even more heavy incentives for wage-stagnation.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amount of training required. I'd be fine with a random anesthesiologist teaching my grade schooler, but I'd hesitate to have a random elementary school teacher giving him anesthesia. Elementary school teaching: a teaching certificate. University professor: PhD, pre-tenure work & published research (Note that there are less-qualified people teaching in universities that are compensated much less.) Nurse practitioner:…

How do software developers fare under that regime? I make 3x more as a software developer than my teacher friends that have had far more schooling (masters degrees in many cases, plus continuing education requirements). I don't know where you live, but in my state (Michigan) teachers have rigorous certification requirements. And I definitely would NOT expect someone without training to be an effective teacher. I'm in…

Intellectual capacity- programming requires a certain ability towards abstract thinking and logic that a minority of the population is comfortable with.

I actually believe a greater percentage of the population, by far, is CAPABLE of this, but very few choose a path that gives them a self idealization that they believe they can or want to be a computer expert of any sort.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to both discriminate against men, yet have more men in the workforce, if women voluntarily are choosing not to enter a profession. In fact, that seems to be the problem: no amount of discrimination against men resolves that women simply are choosing careers in a different distribution to what men do, but the only policy lever that can really be utilized is discrimination at various stages of education o…

Are you saying there are biological differences that are preventing women from entering the software industry? Because historically the trends of CS grads proves this is a false statement [1] so I'm curious where this statement comes from. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...

All the talk of discrimination against women requires that they be helpless damsels in distress in all this, when their dominance of college graduation suggests the opposite.

Biology is not "preventing" women, it's directing their inclination. Women have a ton of opportunities, and it's just as likely that as CS blew up they decided they didn't want to and didn't need to take on the long hours and relative social isolation that professional engineering entails.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do software developers fare under that regime? I make 3x more as a software developer than my teacher friends that have had far more schooling (masters degrees in many cases, plus continuing education requirements). I don't know where you live, but in my state (Michigan) teachers have rigorous certification requirements. And I definitely would NOT expect someone without training to be an effective teacher. I'm in…

Successful software engineers have a lot of knowledge & skill that is often acquired informally, so it may not be reflected in university history. Because of the demand for developers and the apparent difficulty of acquiring the skills, they are well-compensated. If a person has a bachelor's degree, they can get a Michigan interim teaching certificate by passing a test. https://www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/cer…

I see a lot of parallels between this alternative certification route and a bootcamp: yes, the route is shorter, but you're at a huge disadvantage when applying for entry-level positions.

The teachers I know personally obtained traditional four-plus-year bachelors degrees before applying for jobs. In most cases, they had to do a year or more of subbing before finding a permanent position.

(edit to add: education degrees are very hard to get done in four years, especially with the aiding, student teaching, etc.)

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#246

The gender wage gap is real in the sense that there is a gap, but when you analyze it, they are comparing apples to oranges. I'm sure everyone here knows this. https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm The countries with the highest wage gaps are the countries with the most equality in the workplace. Women in Korea are not treated poorly. The important thing though is the people proposing that the wage gap i…

> The important thing though is the people proposing that the wage gap is a problem has a solution. They are pushing equality of outcome.

That's not a solution, that's another problem.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#247

High school, college, any STEM fields are all overwhelmingly biased in terms of favoring women. 57% of college graduates are women. Men are not only getting the short end of the stick but are being told by every voice that they are privileged, it’s their fault, they are bad whereas women have sooooo many extra programs and positive reinforcement to succeed. No one with a straight face can tell me women in entry level…

High school, college, any STEM fields are all overwhelmingly biased in terms of favoring women.

My daughter who is finishing the primary school has recently asked me if it's okay if she doesn't like math, but likes animals and babies.

Sounds like some pressure is being applied...

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#248
post #12

Do read the fine article for the details: But the study did not tell the whole story of women at Google or in the technology industry more broadly, something that company officials acknowledged. Most significantly, it did not address ingrained issues that, according to workplace experts, cannot be overcome simply by considering how much different people are paid for doing the same job: Women and racial minorities oft…

> according to workplace experts The media really needs to stop this practice of just saying "experts say" without any attribution. I suggest when reading any article, when you read, "experts agree" or "sources say" or "critics have said" or "others are saying" -- just replace it with, "I, the author of this article, think ..."

From the article:

Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm, a consulting company that advises companies on strategies for increasing diversity, said the pay gap correction only served “to benefit a group that is dramatically overrepresented in engineering, and that faces fewer barriers to access and opportunity in the field.”

Also, from the article:

“We know that’s only part of the story,” Lauren Barbato, Google’s lead analyst for pay equity, people analytics, wrote in a blog post set to be made public on Monday. “Because leveling, performance ratings, and promotion impact pay, this year, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of these processes to make sure the outcomes are fair and equitable for all employees.”

So...workplace experts said.

Re: Google Moves to Address Wage Equity, and Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men

#250
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do software developers fare under that regime? I make 3x more as a software developer than my teacher friends that have had far more schooling (masters degrees in many cases, plus continuing education requirements). I don't know where you live, but in my state (Michigan) teachers have rigorous certification requirements. And I definitely would NOT expect someone without training to be an effective teacher. I'm in…

Intellectual capacity- programming requires a certain ability towards abstract thinking and logic that a minority of the population is comfortable with. I actually believe a greater percentage of the population, by far, is CAPABLE of this, but very few choose a path that gives them a self idealization that they believe they can or want to be a computer expert of any sort.

I'd argue that the skill-set to be an effective teacher is also not prevalent in the general population. This includes not only intellectual capacity (effective pedagogy is hardly a cakewalk) but also the emotional intelligence required to manage a classroom.
Post reply on HN