When all job differences are accounted for, the pay gap almost disappears • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by hacknat » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 4:52 PM UTC

throwaway2229 wrote: post #170

hacknat wrote: post #131

Personally I think the biggest caveat avoided "when job differences are accounted for" is the care of children. Women, by-and-large, really get hosed with the negative externalities of having children (time off, career halting, etc). Most Western countries are not generous or equitable by half, and the USA is downright savage.

Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. In a married family, the husband compensates. If the woman is unmarried, she gets child support/alimony to make up the difference. So, either you're arguing that child support/alimony is too low, or that married couples get hosed with the externality of having children. This is recognized in law, and people with children get tax deductions, and if…

> Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income.

There's a lot more to it than just that. If there was only a one-time hit to income, everything you said afterwards would hold true, but that's not the only issue, and you're quite naive for thinking so.

Also it shows poor faith in the community to hide behind a throwaway. I wouldn't down vote you for stating the opinion you just stated, but I will take the argument you just made less seriously because your making it in a cowardly fashion.

I take downvoting someone very seriously and will only do so if I think they are harming the community with their speech.

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

#342

Post by ringaroundthetx » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #242

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HIRED has a report out which reveals demographics on what the employees themselves ask for, and what employers offered them. It reveals, as in a piece of data that wasn't typically part of the conversation, that some groups ask for less to begin with while the employer offers them more. But this 'more' amount is still less than employees that asked for more than that to begin with. The average of black candidates, an…

> The average of black candidates, and women candidates, simply asked for less than the average of white male candidates I agree that the phenomenon is much more complex than conspiratorial movie villains, and it's unproductive to simplify things that way (often out of anger). But I'll add some complexity to what you said: They would be wise to ask for less because that is what the market will bear, due to widespread…

> They would be wise to ask for less because that is what the market will bear, due to widespread discrimination.

I would agree with you if it wasn't for how HIRED works. This is information asymmetry. There are only a few kinds of roles available on HIRED by this time and candidates get to post their ask and employers get to post their bids.

The black and women candidates that aren't bidding below market are also getting hired through that system.

There is a mentality associated with it. The "I feel lucky an employer considers me at all" mentality that could come with generations of oppression. The "$100,000 is great don't push it" mentality that would broadcast exactly what class of society you are in, completely ignoring what the market actually will bear. The employer offers you $110,000 and woah they must have REALLY liked you in the interview.

Lets dive deeper, as I'm extrapolating here as well. I'm glad HIRED released that report, several other recruitment firms have insights that aren't included in the collective conscious.

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

#343

Post by anotherbrownguy » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

monktastic1 wrote: post #218

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #187

I think the whole issue of "unequal pay" seems very made-up and political and does not make any sense at all, at least in any way anyone can do anything about it... bear with me while I try to explain it. Lets say there are differences in how much certain demographics of people get paid over another. Lets take short vs tall people or black vs white or with blood groups positive vs negative. Lets say that there is a d…

Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes? If we once believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth less than white people, and so black people were effectively forced to accept less (though nobody was holding a gun to their heads), was that an acceptable state of affairs? What was in it for any of the (non-black) people to change anything about it? Given the stories we regular…

>Do you think it's possible and worthwhile to change attitudes?

Depends.

>If we once believed (and no doubt some still do) that black people are worth less than white people, and so black people were effectively forced to accept less (though nobody was holding a gun to their heads), was that an acceptable state of affairs?

Yes. Westerners didn't arbitrarily decide that blacks were worth less to them, it was because they were. Blacks could not contribute anything to the westerners other than slave labour... and they were too ignorant of the western power structure to organize themselves to fight for equal worth from the states they were in. When they figured it out however, they did get the same worth from the states they were in.

>What was in it for any of the (non-black) people to change anything about it?

Not sure about all non-blacks but the Republican Party of the US which was founded by anti-slavery activists who believed in independence and freedom for all people. They already had examples of free blacks who were just as capable of learning and contributing to the society and letting some people own some of them and treat them as animals wasn't acceptable to them and a lot of others. So, they used it for political leverage and were very successful.

>Given the stories we regularly hear from female employees in the tech industry (of being harassed and/or left out of the "inner circle")

Nobody is stopping women from having their own niche occupation where they make their own inner circles... oh wait there are those occupations, they are called nursing and teaching. Men and women in general have different life goals and different preferences in their careers. Also, "harassment" happens to men too (specially when everything is harassment)... men just deal with it differently i.e. by not complaining about it to others and doing something about it themselves.

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

#344

Post by anotherbrownguy » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #207

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #187

I think the whole issue of "unequal pay" seems very made-up and political and does not make any sense at all, at least in any way anyone can do anything about it... bear with me while I try to explain it. Lets say there are differences in how much certain demographics of people get paid over another. Lets take short vs tall people or black vs white or with blood groups positive vs negative. Lets say that there is a d…

There are significant societal costs when a group is undervalued. Young members of that group choose not to participate. Members of other groups decide to extend the discrimination in other ways.

OK, but why should a business care?

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

#345

Post by s73ver » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #305

s73ver wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the "merits" are essentially "be a white man". Even in an actual meritocracy (which we most definitely are not in), there are still human people who are the ones picking the criteria, and human people who are the ones evaluating others on those criteria. Human people, with all of their explicit and unconscious biases. And, to make it harder, there are many of those criteria that do not have objective measureme…

Then why don't you go start a company and employ minority women for half the price of the competition and leave them in the dust? In a competitive free market, people are paid according to their worth. And their worth is what they are paid. Arbitrages are naturally found and eliminated.

Except that's not true in the least. They're not paid according to their worth; they're paid according to what they can negotiate. These are two entirely separate things. I guarantee you that at least half the people on this board have a story of someone at one of their jobs who was paid quite handsomely, but was extremely incompetent. TheDailyWTF is filled of stories of "Highly Paid Consultants" who write some of the most WTF-worthy code ever seen.

This blind, religious-like faith in the "free market" you exhibit doesn't serve to help anyone.

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

#346

Post by soneca » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

deno wrote: post #340

soneca wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

civilian has a point, but what would fix my model, I believe, is that good hiring practices is one among a myriad of variables that affect the bottomline. Business books for ages are trying to give the "formula" to make a business success (and no one succeeded). It is irrealistic to assume that a company with undoubtably better hiring practices would necessarily and immediatelly (or in a short term) beat the competit…

But we should see something, somewhere…! There must be at least one example of an all female company you can point to with clear advantage over mixed-gender competition if the pay gap is at all real, and certainly if it’s over 30% as claimed by, among others, president Obama. Either the pay gap is too small to matter, or it simply does not exist. So far all evidence favors the latter. This shouldn’t be surprising—aft…

It might be a pay gap too small to matter to the bottomline, but large enough to matter to women earning less.

I do not have an opinion If there is or there is not a pay gap (I do have the opinion that sexism is a real problem at workplaces regardless of the pay gap). But I dont think the argument "if there was, someone would benefit from it" is reasonable.

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

#347

Post by throwaway2229 » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #341

throwaway2229 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. In a married family, the husband compensates. If the woman is unmarried, she gets child support/alimony to make up the difference. So, either you're arguing that child support/alimony is too low, or that married couples get hosed with the externality of having children. This is recognized in law, and people with children get tax deductions, and if…

> Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. There's a lot more to it than just that. If there was only a one-time hit to income, everything you said afterwards would hold true, but that's not the only issue, and you're quite naive for thinking so. Also it shows poor faith in the community to hide behind a throwaway. I wouldn't down vote you for stating the opinion you just stated, but I w…

That's a fair point. However, alimony can most certainly extend beyond the age of majority for the kids, and marital property is usually divided in such a way as to compensate a woman for taking time off to raise kids. Social Security also allows divorced women to partially receive benefits based on their ex-husband's income, even income earned after the end of the marriage.

Regarding my lack of faith in the HN community, I like your attitude, and I also take downvoting seriously. Unfortunately empirically the comment was downvoted, so obviously not everyone agrees with us. It's become politically (both here and elsewhere) unacceptable to have a belief that perhaps being a woman in America isn't so bad. I think it's worthwhile to have this discussion, but I'm not interested in having my head put on a pike for it.

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

#348

Post by hacknat » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

throwaway2229 wrote: post #347

hacknat wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, women who take time off to raise kids will take a hit to income. There's a lot more to it than just that. If there was only a one-time hit to income, everything you said afterwards would hold true, but that's not the only issue, and you're quite naive for thinking so. Also it shows poor faith in the community to hide behind a throwaway. I wouldn't down vote you for stating the opinion you just stated, but I w…

That's a fair point. However, alimony can most certainly extend beyond the age of majority for the kids, and marital property is usually divided in such a way as to compensate a woman for taking time off to raise kids. Social Security also allows divorced women to partially receive benefits based on their ex-husband's income, even income earned after the end of the marriage. Regarding my lack of faith in the HN commu…

I think it's true that being a woman in America isn't all that bad if you're in a privileged group, but under-served populations tend to get the shaft (in more ways then one), and especially women.

While the wage gap between men and women is close when you adjust for "job differences", I think the strong reaction against that caveat is "adjusting for job differences" equates strongly with "behaving like a man".

Fair point on the community our regard for being politically correct is obnoxious, and I definitely don't think you should have been down voted for expressing an intellectually earnest opinion, c'est la vie.

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

#349

Post by rad88 » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 8:03 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #241

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…

I currently find an explanation based on incentives to be best in resolving why there is gender segregation in the work place and a strong correlation to pay grades. The way women selects men is heavily weighted towards how much the man earns. According to dating statistics from dating sites, its the biggest single strongest attribute to predict if a message sent from a man will give positive response. This can also…

> 90% of women in china would not consider dating a man who earn less than the median income.

4/5 women in China are married by age 30. By ages 35-39 only 4.6% are unmarried. I guess eventually they all settle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_nu#Culture_and_statistic...

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

#350

Post by lkbm » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 8:49 PM UTC

emsy wrote: post #327

lkbm wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Here's another claim I've heard many times and never seen refuted (or even challenged): Tall men are paid more than short men (extending into non-physical work such as programming.) A company that recognizes this should hire a bunch of short programmers a…

This is such a poor comparison. Do you understand how averages work?

I am pretty good with averages. Can you explain how they're relevant here?