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

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

#61

Post by abalone »

stcredzero wrote: post #53
abalone wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course it doesn't. I simply admire my friend for bucking the typical trend. (And boosting her income by doing so.)

This implies it is a choice on the part of the woman, when the study mentions it may very well be due to sexist gender roles regarding childcare.

Hopefully you don’t congratulate successful minority friends for “bucking the typical trend.”

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

#62

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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.

> 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.

The trouble is that the difference starts earlier than that.

Say you buy a tech company with 90% male software developers, aiming to balance it out. Turns out qualified female software developers get paid the same amount, but there aren't as many women with computer science degrees or relevant experience.

You could go round up some lower-paid women with no qualifications and train them to be software developers, but you could also do the same thing with lower-paid individuals with no qualifications who are of any gender. The problem in both cases is that once they're qualified for the higher paid work, you have to pay the higher salary or they can quit and go work for someone who does.

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

#63

Post by nearbuy »

mattnewton wrote: post #11
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.

Wild speculation follows: So there could be two kinds of employers each competing in their own pool: one pool that believes gender (directly or indirectly) is a significant factor, and the other that does not think it is a significant factor to job performance. Because pool 1 believes that gender is not a significant factor, they know that wage discrimination on the basis of that factor would be illegal and open them…

It seems like if you were in group 1, you'd be offering women salaries above their normal discriminatory market rate, which should lead to more female applicants and more female hires.

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

#64

Post by rubidium »

nearbuy wrote: post #22
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?

If you're talking about singles, then no, not really. You do domestic work for yourself. Men still have to do cleaning and maintenance at home, or pay someone else to do it, or live with the fallout. If you're talking about couples who share an account, it doesn't really make a difference. The couple ends up with the same amount of money and domestic care whether one spouse does more or if they share responsibilities…

You snuck an assumption in that last point: “and the husband fully controls all the finances”.

Why?

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

#65

Post by stcredzero »

dabbledash wrote: post #56
stcredzero wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who don’t start out committed to socially conservative ideas are suspicious about the direction of the causality.

I test center-left politically. However, I still think that education and stable family life is quite important for raising children to be successful. As for the direction of the causality, Chinese emigrants the world over have arrived on distant shores with very little money, often less that the general populace and often less even than the local poor. Yet they prospered, maintained a high regard for the value of education, then in subsequent generations have sent their children to good schools. This has been happening for many hundreds of years.

The mother's side of my Cane River creole ex-girlfriend's family had values like this. I knew some very graceful people of African American descent who also had values like that. In my experience, it's such values, however they come about, which are the causal origin.

I find your apparent preconceived notions on who gets to hold which ideas disturbing. Ideas are ideas, not flags or arm-bands.

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

#66

Post by abalone »

stcredzero wrote: post #60
abalone wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

There are sexist gender roles at play even among single parents, potentially. How can we determine those aren't preferential choices? (To wit, you didn’t lament the rise of “single fatherhood.”) There is an apparent bias against men getting custody of the children. There also isn't a lamentation about men's under-representation in certain medical fields in certain countries. It is, of course, possible that for women…

You are now interrogating a quote from the study. I’m not sure what the Harvard dept. of Economics would think about your “wealthy mother” solution to patriarchal gender roles, but it seems a little weak to me.

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

#67

Post by stcredzero »

abalone wrote: post #66
stcredzero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are sexist gender roles at play even among single parents, potentially. How can we determine those aren't preferential choices? (To wit, you didn’t lament the rise of “single fatherhood.”) There is an apparent bias against men getting custody of the children. There also isn't a lamentation about men's under-representation in certain medical fields in certain countries. It is, of course, possible that for women…

You are now interrogating a quote from the study. I’m not sure what the Harvard dept. of Economics would think about your “wealthy mother” solution to patriarchal gender roles, but it seems a little weak to me.

I’m not sure what the Harvard dept. of Economics would think about your “wealthy mother” solution

Where did I cite that as a "solution?" You are revealing your biases and projections quite clearly. Rather, it's actually support for your position, with regards to the possible range of natural behaviors observed in our society. You asserted that women would choose to work more, then spend more on child care, but they are somehow less free to make that choice. How is that so?

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

#68

Post by mattnewton »

euyyn wrote: post #42
mattnewton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 res…

So you are banking on there being enough women who leave discriminating employer in your field to fill all available positions. In that case there is just a lot of labour - I don’t see why employer 1 isn’t lowering their wages of new recruits anyways.

Also, the discriminating employer is presumably not discriminating openly, or they will be sued. So there is limited information on your part to find the right pricing for just women.

Wages are also sticky, it is hard in many industries to blanket cut them across the board without a real cost to morale and the quality of the labour you attract.

In practice I cant imagine a real firm that could execute on this strategy.

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

#69

Post by westiseast »

door5 wrote: post #55
westiseast wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

Those are two great examples -- one thing I'd like to add is that the audience of Hackernews is pretty upper-middle class (as are the anecdotes in this thread), these issues are compounded greatly when it comes to poor or working class women, who may feel completely trapped in a bad marriage economically, or may be struggling as single working mothers.

Absolutely - it’s probably a common feature of stay-at-home dads in the 21st century that it’s a good deal. There’s going to be a much larger percentage of stay-at-home mums who have awful ‘deals’.

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

#70

Post by stcredzero »

abalone wrote: post #61
stcredzero wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it doesn't. I simply admire my friend for bucking the typical trend. (And boosting her income by doing so.)

This implies it is a choice on the part of the woman, when the study mentions it may very well be due to sexist gender roles regarding childcare. Hopefully you don’t congratulate successful minority friends for “bucking the typical trend.”

This implies it is a choice on the part of the woman

Which is literally what my friend told me on the matter. She deliberately chose to work less convenient hours with longer shifts for a higher pay rate.

Hopefully you don’t congratulate successful minority friends for “bucking the typical trend.”

I would so congratulate Jeremy Lin for doing so. It seems as though you have a particular problematic preconceived notion of what a minority trend is. Just who are you imagining when you write, “bucking the typical trend?”

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