Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are gender quotas good for business?

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#31

Post by sago »

m1el wrote: post #25
sago wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What very confident nonsense! Individual fitness is not independent, let alone group fitness. And without independence you are just plain wrong. Sociology dressed up as a priori mathematics is rarely credible. Even worse if the math simply isn't correct.

> Individual fitness is not independent, let alone group fitness. And without independence you are just plain wrong. Who said that fitness in my description cannot include group fitness? The same argument goes for adding a worker to the workforce. Does the worker fit the existing workforce?

> Who said that fitness in my description cannot include group fitness?

I did. Because doing so contradicts your conclusion. Though I also said it is not necessary. Lack of independence alone makes you wrong.

> The same argument goes for adding a worker to the workforce. Does the worker fit the existing workforce?

Which same argument? The argument you made was about filtering lowering fitness.

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#33

Post by tdb7893 »

lemagedurage wrote: post #13
ChrisSD wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a noble sentiment but simply doesn't happen in the business world (or in many other places). So the hard question is, how do you effectively encourage business to choose the best people regardless of gender? Some have tried blind interviews but these are very hard to do properly and effectively. A 40% quota is another way to push business into looking beyond gender.

Then a minority-only company should be both cheaper and more productive, by supply and demand.

I think there are three potential issues with this, firstly, minorities are being discriminated against and paid less in the scenario so it wouldn't be desirable on that metric. Secondly competition in many markets isn't robust enough to have an even playing field if you wanted to start a new company with all "minorities". Third, if the company was all "minorities" you would be drastically reducing the hiring pool so even with good competition it would be hard to hire well (which could wipe out any minor efficiency gains).

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#35

Post by AnIdiot »

m1el wrote: post #2

No. This is mathematical nonsense. Let's say there's a fitness function for each candidate in a candidate pool. If you filter candidates by any criteria, the expectation of fitness function will be less or equal to expectation before filtering.

Of course that assumes you can select the best candidate from a pool. Feminists argue that there is bias that prevents this. However studies on the gender pay gap reveal that there's very little bias and most differences can be explained by education, experience, job choice, hours worked, etc. More recently psychological differences between men and women have been shown to contribute to the pay gap.[1]

My opinion is that affirmative action is naive and that society is better off to strengthen meritocratic hiring. Removing names from CVs may help women slightly but there's no reason to believe that men and women would achieve the same outcomes given equal opportunity.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/oep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/oep...

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#36

Post by ncphillips »

m1el wrote: post #2

No. This is mathematical nonsense. Let's say there's a fitness function for each candidate in a candidate pool. If you filter candidates by any criteria, the expectation of fitness function will be less or equal to expectation before filtering.

Humans aren’t cogs in a machine. Our value to an organization is not absolute and based solely on our technical proficiency in a single area. An individuals value is relative to the team.

Adding another programmer to my company would be less valuable then adding a salesperson. Similarly, adding people with diverse perspectives is more valuable then hiring only people that grew up in the same city, at our income level, with same gender, ethnicity, age, etc.

An assumption I suspect you’re making is that we already have THE correct fitness function.

They aren’t just trying to filter the fitness function, they’re trying to improve it.

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#37

Post by ChrisSD »

m1el wrote: post #21
ChrisSD wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, I think what you just wrote is statistical nonsense. If your ultimate selection from a pool is heavily biased towards an irrelevant fact (gender) then countering that bias can lead to a better selection.

A better solution would be to do gender-blind hiring, not gender quotas.

I was only responding to the suggestion that quotas are "mathematical nonsence". I don't know if they are the best solution or not.

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#38

Post by m1el »

sago wrote: post #31
m1el wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individual fitness is not independent, let alone group fitness. And without independence you are just plain wrong. Who said that fitness in my description cannot include group fitness? The same argument goes for adding a worker to the workforce. Does the worker fit the existing workforce?

> Who said that fitness in my description cannot include group fitness? I did. Because doing so contradicts your conclusion. Though I also said it is not necessary. Lack of independence alone makes you wrong. > The same argument goes for adding a worker to the workforce. Does the worker fit the existing workforce? Which same argument? The argument you made was about filtering lowering fitness.

> I did. Because doing so contradicts your conclusion.

Going for the conclusion instead of the argument. You can't demonstrate where my reasoning is wrong, but saying that the conclusion is wrong. Congratulations, you're an ideologue.

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#39

Post by ncphillips »

AnIdiot wrote: post #35
m1el wrote: post #2

No. This is mathematical nonsense. Let's say there's a fitness function for each candidate in a candidate pool. If you filter candidates by any criteria, the expectation of fitness function will be less or equal to expectation before filtering.

Of course that assumes you can select the best candidate from a pool. Feminists argue that there is bias that prevents this. However studies on the gender pay gap reveal that there's very little bias and most differences can be explained by education, experience, job choice, hours worked, etc. More recently psychological differences between men and women have been shown to contribute to the pay gap.[1] My opinion is…

Why assume technical skill in one area is the only variable in determining merit?

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#40

Post by dazzawazza »

I love the idea that there is a scarcity of "golden skirts" that make this too hard. It presupposes that the current male members are all "golden trousers", the cream of the crop, the best of the best.

I've met many many board members over the years and they are often very unimpressive. I'm sure we can find some equally unimpressive women to replace them! Better still anyone with even a modicum of talent would do!

Post reply on HN