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

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

scholar.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 115 posts

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

#81

Post by stcredzero »

warp_factor wrote: post #28
wallace_f wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, when the dial was turned up all the way on prejudice and discrimination, slavery was the result, as an extreme version of this ability to arbitrage the pay gap. As insane and unjust as that was, that really existed. Today, if there is a pay gap it would be exploitable, no? Salaries are typically the by far the most expensive cost for most tech startups. Discrimination against women is illegal and socially sh…

Because there is no such opportunity. This whole "0.70$ per 1.00$ from men", doesn't take into account different professions for example.

According to John Green, the actual gender pay gap is more like 8%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI

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

#82

Post by stcredzero »

BeeOnRope wrote: post #20
mattnewton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The group 1 group, which wishes to hire more women to "exploit" this gap, doesn't have to engage in wage discrimination though, do they? They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women. If they did hire any men, they just need to ensure they are paid the same as their existing workforce. So you don't need to engage in wage discri…

They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women.

Not just that. That company would also need to offer more workplace flexibility, if we are to believe the study.

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

#83

Post by stcredzero »

chcknsammich wrote: post #16
manicdee wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you walk me through the acquisition process? I am getting lost at that point between “fire all the men” and “hire women with the appropriate experience.”

Let's say you are a small startup owner, and you have enough cash on hand to hire 6 male devs. You then realize you could hire 7 equally competent female devs at the exact same price, all this while still offering more money than their supposed current employer who is underpaying them. If all of this were true the price would shift over time on these margins, and this "gap" would disappear. Why is it that we must con…

Let's say you are a small startup owner, and you have enough cash on hand to hire 6 male devs.

You then realize you could hire 7 equally competent female devs at the exact same price

In reality, the likely outcome is that the 7 women would end up working at Google, who can and will gladly way out-compete you on salaries, and you end up hiring 7 quirky men, then firing a few of them.

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

#84

Post by missingcolours »

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.

For anyone who wants to read more about this claim it's most commonly referred to as the "success sequence".

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

#85

Post by dang »

abalone wrote: post #49
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.

Please follow the site guidelines, which ask:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#86

Post by em-bee »

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…

here is the constraint: if i ask for help watching the kids because i need to work, relatives come running. if my wife asks the same, no-one volunteers.

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

#87

Post by em-bee »

dang wrote: post #4

Url changed from https://fee.org/articles/harvard-study-gender-pay-gap-explai... , which points to this.

why? that article provides a summary and is more interesting to read. not everyone wants to read an 80 page paper. i'd understand if the article didn't add any value at all, but i don't think that's the case here.

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

#88

Post by claudiawerner »

erikig wrote: post #6
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.

Labor is not easily fungible and is difficult to treat as a commodity.

I disagree; the whole point of late capitalism has been to make labour more fungible than it was, to the point where it's actually very easy now. Labour-power, at least in the Marxian sense, is a commodity, but labour is not.

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

#89

Post by the_trapper »

abalone wrote: post #47
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,…

> 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.”)

Isn't that mostly caused by a sexist judiciary. I know that as a man in America in the event of a divorce it is very unlikely that I would get majority custody of my children. From what I've seen it takes a lot for a woman to lose custody if she wants it.

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

#90

Post by belorn »

I wonder why studies like this never explore incentive models of why there are different choices. What does the data say about the subset of men who go against the gender norm and avoid inconvenient days, do not work overtime, prioritizing schedulerelated amenities, and take more unpaid time off. How does society treat that subset compared to the majority that follows gender norm?

I would predict that their income would be lower, but not as much as the average woman. The risk of involuntarily childlessness would be significant higher and their social support network would on average be smaller. Health would be a interesting aspect to look at, which could honestly go either way.

I would also predict that for the subset of women who would go against those gender expectation would look rather similar. Involuntarily childlessness would go up but far below that of the average man. Their social support network would also shrink but again not below that of men. In trade their income would be above average but not as much as the average man. Average health and life span would likely go down but not as low as the average man.

Post reply on HN