Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#41

Post by BadassFractal » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

hnaccy wrote: post #37

>Crucially, a gap in overtime acceptance rates barely exists for those who are married. As we can see in Figure 10, married male operators with dependents are only 0 to 2 percentage points more likely to accept overtime than married women with dependents. This suggests that those who are married with dependents, men and women, are able to divide up caretaking responsibilities at home in a way that allows them to work…

Reminds me of the (trite?) conservative talk points that if you 1. finish high school 2. don't have children outside of marriage 3. hold down a job, then you should more or less have a successful middle class existence.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#42

Post by euyyn » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

mattnewton wrote: post #25

jldugger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the Greenspan argument. In his own words: > I always valued men and women equally, and I found that because others did not, good women economists were cheaper than men. Hiring women does two things: It gives us better-quality work for less money, and it raises the market value of women. But in order to arbitrage this, you have to be willing to pay women and men differently. It's not impossible to see a market…

I think that hit the nail on the head: once you see the arbitrage opportunity, to exercise it you must knowingly discriminate against women, which is unethical and likely illegal.

No, you really don't. The following isn't true:

> But in order to arbitrage this, you have to be willing to pay women and men differently.

A very simple way to arbitrage it without discriminating is to set your wages somewhere between what others pay men and women. Women will flock to you, as you pay better than elsewhere, while men will tend to leave to the discriminating jobs. You pay everyone the same, but the result is your cost in wages is lower than your competitors'.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#43

Post by warp_factor » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #39

warp_factor wrote: post #23

The coverage on this subject is more and more made to follow a feminist/sexist narrative that wants to prove that the world is patriarchal and against womens. the common saying "0.70$ for every 1.00$ of a man" is when you average all the women salaries against all the man salaries. It doesn't take into account specific individuals or interests. I believe the main issue here is that womens are on average more interest…

The paper directly contradicts your beliefs about “womens”: > These gender differences are consistent with women taking on more of the household and childcare duties than men, limiting their work availability in the process (Parker et al., 2015; Bertrand et al., 2015).

how does that contradict any of my "beliefs" ?

The workplace is not the one restricting the women to work more hours. It seems to be based on a choice and preference.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#44

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

TheCoreh wrote: post #35

wallace_f wrote: post #2

Can someone explain to me what's wrong with this: If women make $0.70 for every $1.00 a man makes, and women are underrepresented in many lucrative fields, then: an arbitrage opportunity necessarily exists. In other words, if there is systemic sexism, then there exists a profit opportunity for entrepreneurs to buy-up typical companies and replace expensive, scarce male labor with cheaper, less-scarce female labor.

I've thought about this too, because understanding why this doesn't seem to happen more often is part of figuring out how to address the underlying pay gap issue. My guess is that even assuming a perfectly rational employer (with no unconscious bias), the viability of this sort of arbitrage would depend on women _costing_ $0.70 to the dollar to their employers when compared to men, not on women _earning_ $0.70 to the…

(Anecdotal evidence: I've talked to several local male peers and most of them said they would not bother taking paternal leave even if available, and would rather stay at work)

Anecdotal: I have a coworker campaigning to have the company let him take paternal leave.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#45

Post by solidsnack9000 » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC

hnaccy wrote: post #37

>Crucially, a gap in overtime acceptance rates barely exists for those who are married. As we can see in Figure 10, married male operators with dependents are only 0 to 2 percentage points more likely to accept overtime than married women with dependents. This suggests that those who are married with dependents, men and women, are able to divide up caretaking responsibilities at home in a way that allows them to work…

Isn't the quoted passage talking about two parent households as being a phenomenon?

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#46

Post by tomnipotent » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:08 AM UTC

gohbgl wrote: post #31

door5 wrote: post #9

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

It's not like the man uses the overtime money to buy a new Porsche for himself and a new dust mop for his wife. Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores. It's just how many couples choose to organize things.

> Also nobody is forcing women to do household chores

Clearly you haven't been following the issue that closely if you think this. Of course woman have been forced to do household chores - up until this past century, they've had no other options.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#47

Post by abalone » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

hnaccy wrote: post #37

>Crucially, a gap in overtime acceptance rates barely exists for those who are married. As we can see in Figure 10, married male operators with dependents are only 0 to 2 percentage points more likely to accept overtime than married women with dependents. This suggests that those who are married with dependents, men and women, are able to divide up caretaking responsibilities at home in a way that allows them to work…

> rise of single motherhood strikes again.

The study addressed this. There are sexist gender roles at play even among single parents, potentially. (To wit, you didn’t lament the rise of “single fatherhood.”)

From the study,

> These results suggest that single men are able to take care of their dependents by working more overtime, possibly to pay for child support or to finance other forms of child care. Single women, on the other hand, appear to be making the decision to do the caretaking themselves rather than to caretake through additional earnings. It is, of course, possible that for women this situation is not as much a personal preference as it is a constraint.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#48

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

BadassFractal wrote: post #41

hnaccy wrote: post #37

>Crucially, a gap in overtime acceptance rates barely exists for those who are married. As we can see in Figure 10, married male operators with dependents are only 0 to 2 percentage points more likely to accept overtime than married women with dependents. This suggests that those who are married with dependents, men and women, are able to divide up caretaking responsibilities at home in a way that allows them to work…

Reminds me of the (trite?) conservative talk points that if you 1. finish high school 2. don't have children outside of marriage 3. hold down a job, then you should more or less have a successful middle class existence.

1. finish high school 2. don't have children outside of marriage 3. hold down a job, then you should more or less have a successful middle class existence.

What's wrong with that? I think that's a fine way to plan one's life. It's over simplifying some things. Not all high school educations are equally valuable, for one thing, which then also relates to point 3.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#49

Post by abalone » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #40

A female friend of mine who worked at Whole Foods did the typically male tactics cited in this article: Trading off regular hours for more lucrative Holiday and overtime hours. She also had a family. (And a 2nd job as a Yoga instructor. Not sure how that aligned her incentives.)

Great, well I guess that one anecdote overrides a careful study by the Harvard department of Economics.

Re: Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators [pdf]

#50

Post by westiseast » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #29

monochromatic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty just. Who would be paying for the domestic work, anyway?

One of the original complaints of feminism was that we had developed a culture where both men and women work all day long, but women’s work was unpaid domestic work while the men got the paycheck. That gave men huge power over women in a society that still relied on the women’s work. So we can identify a problem. The society (of the 1960’s and before in particular) required women’s work, but women were not compensate…

I’m a stay at home dad and have been for the last 5 years. My wife works for herself, spending anywhere from 10-14 hours a day working pretty much 6-7 days a week (she loves her job and gets paid well to do it).

Personally I don’t see it as an unfair bargain. I work hard at home, it can be stressful and tiring sometimes, but my wife takes on all the stress of providing income. I get ‘compensated’ pretty well - we have a good income and I live a great life. I personally think that home-makers who complain that they aren’t ‘compensated’ for their work are being churlish.

That’s great when it’s working well.

I suspect there’s a couple of problems -

(1) often the home-maker goes back to work, but the home-duties don’t get redistributed accordingly. The home maker is forever saddled with that burden, limiting their career options.

(2) In a divorce, the man is often left with a good income, through a valid, ongoing career, while the stay-at-home mom is left with an empty CV, the ongoing burden of the kids, and an allowance decided by the courts. Sure, men might have the burden of a new alimony/child payments ‘tax’, but otherwise they’re now free to do whatever they want. The woman isn’t.

(vast generalization of course)