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Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

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Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#41
post #11
post #5

I can't wait to see Googles response. I have no idea why they would even open themselves up to this criticism when they could easily align the salaries.

They responded and denied it; frankly it's plausible that they're correct (but also that they're not). It's not yet fair to assume one party is correct over the other while both try to drive the media presentation. Let it play out.

I would lean towards both being correct depending on how they looked at the data. If you did purely education level, degree field and years of experience related to position then I would expect minimal deviation. However, you can go further tweaking how you look at each of those variables.

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#43
post #40
post #3

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree. Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor earning double her salary beca…

> I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. The question you may ask here however is: Does it matter? I mean I agree that it matters from "getting the facts straight", but maybe not necessarily from the conclusions. If the pay gap is due to less experience, less education etc., then you're seeing effects of earlier discrimination…

What if men and women naturally have different priorities as far as what jobs they want to take and how much they want to work?

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#44
The US Dept. of Labor is suing Google for not revealing compensation data [0].

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has suspicion on pay disparities and in order to investigate further sent a request to Google to access some records (Point 9) [1]. Google denied OFCCP access to these records. Now, DoL has taken Google to court to get access to the records they need to investigate further and complete their evaluation. I wonder why Google is being so evasive about it.

[0] https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170104

[1] https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#45

The people who talk about the president on the tv and radio said this isn't a real thing. I'd check your fact sheet on this is could be one of those liberal based poll things with a slanted view!

Who are "The people who talk about the president on the tv and radio" and why should we assume their views are unbiased?

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#46
post #7
post #3

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree. Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor earning double her salary beca…

It's an odd situation. The government isn't giving out any numbers, but they are saying things like: "The government’s analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry." Pretty strong language when you aren't yet willing to back it up. Google's replies are equally strong in the other direction: "Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis o…

The government can't give out numbers when Google is denying them access to the records. I've written the details in another comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#47

Assuming labor markets are liquid, if the pay gap is true it means either: 1. Women really want to work for Google and take less pay than working at other employers or 2. Women at almost all employers are receiving less money. There were times not too long ago when there were Jewish quotas. Nobelist Physicist Richard Feynman was denied entry into Columbia and he went to MIT instead. Nobelist Medicine & Physiology Aut…

Markets don't solve everything, especially institutionalized racism or gender inequality. It is a lazy solution to a very harmful problem.

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#48
post #30
post #3

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree. Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor earning double her salary beca…

I can't find the source but I read something recently that said that after controlling for position and experience the pay gap is around 7%. Off the cuff, I find that to match my intuition. If you could hire women engineers for 80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a deal and the women would get a big pay…

Of course that is the reason. People aren't underpaying women because they think they can get away with it to save money, they under pay because they think the women is worth less than an equivalent male.

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#49
post #3

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree. Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor earning double her salary beca…

What you heard is an apology for sexism. Almost all structural/systematic discrimination can be controlled out of your comparison if you normalize it for the factors of the, er, structural/systematic discrimination.

Leaving the workforce is generally believed to negatively impact people of every gender's ability to contribute productively. If you want to claim that women or types of absences specific to women are special, the burden of proof is on you.

EDIT: I see you've removed the claim I was addressing in an edit. Wish I'd quoted it.

Re: Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says

#50
This is just stupid. Men make more 1) they can usually do the job better, and or are more driven b/c testosterone. 2) they are more likely to negotiate for a better salary.

Women have been complaining about being women for a hundred years now. It's been a disaster for the country.

This isn't popular, but women ought to spend more time acting like women and less trying to act like men. This is actually better for the economy. If a woman has twice as many kids instead of a career, in just one generation she will have made up for not being a full time employee. People underestimate how awesome and unique women are. Making kids is amazing and people act like there is something wrong with a woman for focusing on motherhood. It's good for the country, but ladies going on birth control is bad for the country. If you don't believe me, look at Japan. Their GDP is constantly shrinking because they have such a low birth rate. So why is the government complaining?

People are too easily deceived by love of money.

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