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How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

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Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#91

Post by moron4hire »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #70
electrograv wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They [women] are less likely to be promoted because they are less likely to want a promotion. I don't think anyone could ask for a better example of systemic entrenched sexist bias than this quote. "It's okay, don't worry about it; they just don't want to be promoted as much as us men." This is not that much different from the old "women enjoy being in their husband's kitchen and tending to the house, so it's okay…

> systemic entrenched sexist bias Did you read the source? I was not being sexist, I was stating a factual finding from a peer-reviewed journal... I believe you misinterpreted my statement. > Evidence clearly exists that lot of women used to enjoy being in the kitchen, but that doesn't mean women are less suited to work outside the kitchen -- to make an extreme example. Yes, and this is my point! If you read the arti…

Perhaps one of the reasons this aggregate category of "women" doesn't want "these jobs" is because of an expectation of harassment or bias on the job. It's kind of hard to want to progress anywhere that is openly or passively aggressive towards you.

I don't think "they just don't want the jobs" should be considered the end of the story or any sort of proof that sexism isn't happening. Regardless, even if it were, it isn't actionable information in any way. You can't go from "some women just don't want to be CEOs" to "thus, let's continue to operate the ol' boys club". Somewhere in the middle, a message or two are getting lost.

You'd really have to be living under a rock to think there is not sexism going in the workplace. All this study says is that it doesn't manifest in the particular, limited region surrounding compensation, which is by far not the sum total of the employment experience.

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#93

Post by chrisfosterelli »

moron4hire wrote: post #91
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> systemic entrenched sexist bias Did you read the source? I was not being sexist, I was stating a factual finding from a peer-reviewed journal... I believe you misinterpreted my statement. > Evidence clearly exists that lot of women used to enjoy being in the kitchen, but that doesn't mean women are less suited to work outside the kitchen -- to make an extreme example. Yes, and this is my point! If you read the arti…

Perhaps one of the reasons this aggregate category of "women" doesn't want "these jobs" is because of an expectation of harassment or bias on the job. It's kind of hard to want to progress anywhere that is openly or passively aggressive towards you. I don't think "they just don't want the jobs" should be considered the end of the story or any sort of proof that sexism isn't happening. Regardless, even if it were, it…

> Perhaps one of the reasons this aggregate category of "women" doesn't want "these jobs" is because of an expectation of harassment or bias on the job. It's kind of hard to want to progress anywhere that is openly or passively aggressive towards you.

Sure, perhaps. While we are throwing out guesses, perhaps it is because women consider other things in life more of a priority than achieving career power.

When asked to rate their life priorities, women tend to put a lower ratio of work related goals. Cultural influences teach men and women to prioritize different things in their life. That's probably a bigger gender problem worth tackling.

> I don't think "they just don't want the jobs" should be considered the end of the story or any sort of proof that sexism isn't happening.

Definitely, which is why I said "I'm not going to argue that this accounts for it entirely".

> All this study says is that it doesn't manifest in the particular, limited region surrounding compensation, which is by far not the sum total of the employment experience.

Also true for sure, but the original article posted by OP is about compensation, and I never suggested that the study covered the totality of workplace experiences.

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#94

Post by chrisfosterelli »

geofft wrote: post #89
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue that this accounts for it entirely, but I do think it's worth pointing out that women typically are less interested in higher ranked positions than men tend to be [0]. They are less likely to be promoted because they are less likely to want a promotion. [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract

How do you reliably distinguish someone intrinsically not wanting a promotion from someone not wanting to deal with the crap that comes with trying to get a promotion? From the abstract: "In studies 5–7, when faced with the possibility of receiving a promotion at their current place of employment or obtaining a high-power position after graduating from college, women and men anticipated similar levels of positive out…

I think the study partially addressed this when they asked different participants to describe and rate their life goals. Men tend to consider workplace-related success as more important in their life:

"In studies 1 and 2, when asked to list their core goals in life, women listed more life goals overall than men, and a smaller proportion of their goals related to achieving power at work."

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#95

Post by bobwaycott »

whatok wrote: post #82
bobwaycott wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon. You assume they are/will when you hire them. When/if you discover they are not, you don't cut their pay, you fire them. It seems you're trying to angle for some defense of Peter earning more than Paul because the former contributed "more". Contributing to a team isn't a metric that should be set by an overachiever. Everyone—especially every overachiever (including myself)—should disabuse themselves of the noti…

I'm arguing that talented people move to greener pastures when they feel that they are undervalued or not treated equally. If for every overachiever you have x number of people who go "well I'm going to get paid the same as long as I put in my 40", you will no longer have a successful company. If you doubt the existence of this, you will have proven that you have never worked for the government. > A better approach i…

> I'm arguing that talented people move to greener pastures when they feel that they are undervalued or not treated equally.

Well, if everyone has the same jobs and responsibilities for the same pay, and someone thinks they aren't being treated equally, they're wrong, aren't they? They are being treated equally. What they're wanting is to be treated as better than equal to their peers. And if they think they're undervalued, but nobody else feels that way, that seems to further indicate they are wanting to be treated as better than equal to their peers. This is irrational and selfish. If everyone lounging on the other side's green grass is also treated equally and valued the same, then there will be no other green pastures to seek reinforcement of one's belief that s/he is better and worth more than other team members.

> If for every overachiever you have x number of people who go "well I'm going to get paid the same as long as I put in my 40", you will no longer have a successful company.

If a company's success depends on extracting more labor from their employees than they are willing to pay for, the company is morally and ethically in the wrong, and has far greater problems to tackle. If its success depends on abusing overachievers, the overachievers should stop permitting such abuse, and the company should realign its objectives with treating employees fairly. Employees—especially those on salary—should not be subjected to overworking. A company should take an active role in ensuring its workers don't burn themselves out.

> If you doubt the existence of this, you will have proven that you have never worked for the government.

Disagreement proves nothing, and whether I have ever worked for the government is in no way germane to this discussion.

> I don't see how this is any different from offering pay raises. What if there is no room for advancement in the company? How do you measure whether people qualify for this? You can always offer more pay, you aren't necessarily able to create new job responsibilities and titles out of thing air.

Pay raises are not and should not be tied to promotions. I was talking here of satisfying the overachiever's need to be recognized as "special". I'm that type of person, but I've also disabused myself of the notion that my natural inclination to push myself is a negative reflection on those around me. I have to remain mindful that we are all different in our own ways, and that difference shouldn't translate into greater remuneration for me only. If there are pay raises to be had—and there should be—they should be applied equally to all. If an overachiever doesn't want new responsibilities and a promotion to feel special, then s/he ought to be able to accept that being paid equally for the same job is not a personal slight. If a company cannot offer pay raises equally, they should not offer them at all. If everyone is putting in their 40 hours, and one overachiever is putting in 60, the wrong response is for the company to pressure everyone else to be like the lone overachiever.

Measuring whether people qualify for a raise is rather simpler than it's made to be, apparently. Is the person performing satisfactorily in their job? Is the budget able to handle an annual raise or bonus for good work? Then everyone who isn't being fired gets it.

Treating people equally, and valuing them all individually, is not a very complicated thing to do.

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#96

Post by omonra »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #35
patrickmay wrote: post #2

> Cornell professors Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found that women were paid 79 cents for each dollar a man was paid. Even after adjusting for type of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92 cents for each dollar. This is not supported by the evidence. See, for example, this article by Christina Hoff Sommers ( http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/ ): "No matter…

If you are going to account for position, how do you account for the fact that women are often in a lower ranked position, because they are less likely to be promoted? You can't claim there's no pay gap just because it's being obfuscated by bias in job titles.

The data should bear it out. If women are promoted less often due to discrimination (as opposed to other factors), they would also be paid less while they are at the lower rungs of the organization.

Ie you don't pay someone the same amount while stifling them during promotion time.

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#97

Post by omonra »

whatok wrote: post #61
serge2k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention that explicity > after adjusting for type of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92 cents for each dollar. 8% is still a lot. I'd like for companies to just show the data.

> I'd like for companies to just show the data. Agreed. If anyone in government was serious about this, they would lobby the SEC to require publicly listed companies to disclose this information on a granular enough level that comparisons inside and outside of industry were possible.

'Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) US Government agency, with the purpose of protecting investors from dangerous or illegal financial practices or fraud, by requiring full and accurate financial disclosure by companies offering stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other securities to the public.'

Why should SEC be involved in feminist causes? Their charter mentions nothing about it. I mean we can't go around demanding government to promote our pet causes because we feel like it.

I'm short and I wish there was no height discrimination. But I don't think SEC should deal with it :)

If this is something you feel strongly about, shouldn't this be dealt with by the legislature?

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#98

Post by belorn »

electrograv wrote: post #54
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to argue that this accounts for it entirely, but I do think it's worth pointing out that women typically are less interested in higher ranked positions than men tend to be [0]. They are less likely to be promoted because they are less likely to want a promotion. [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract

> They [women] are less likely to be promoted because they are less likely to want a promotion. I don't think anyone could ask for a better example of systemic entrenched sexist bias than this quote. "It's okay, don't worry about it; they just don't want to be promoted as much as us men." This is not that much different from the old "women enjoy being in their husband's kitchen and tending to the house, so it's okay…

The Swedish government agency responsible for statistics do a yearly survey on what people value in their job and by job seekers. Attributes like pay, social status, work environment, safety, and so on is evaluated and then correlated to things like gender.

And yes, there are differences. We could blame it on women for consistently valuating social status higher than pay, or we could blame men for consistently valuating pay higher than social status.

Here is an idea. Lets increase pay for female dominated professions, but lets restrict it to only jobs that has low social status, is risky, and with unfriendly environment. At the same time, lets apply affirmative action to female dominated professions with high social status and low pay, and get a minimum of 40% males.

Those changes would have a almost guarantied effect to eliminate current pay gaps, but would be completely rejected by any feminist group, for the very reason that it would go against the current female and male culture that created the pay gap.

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#99

Post by jimbobimbo »

adrr wrote: post #45
tomphoolery wrote: post #17

Inflate your current salary by $20,000 if this question is asked.

Lying during interview process is very dangerous for your career. If you don't want to answer, don't answer.

It has nothing to do with lying. It's a bullshit answer to a bullshit question. Your current salary is nobody's business (unless they're IRS).

Re: How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

#100

Post by dlist »

Presume you were born a slave. Your family had been slaves for 5 centuries. Slaves are taught in early childhood that walking is always the "honourable" thing to do - only free people ride. Slaves also never fight back in an argument, always give way, always put other people's needs first, shrink their own presence as much as possible, etc.

Even when you earn your freedom, your instinct when anyone asks for riders would be to walk. You have to unlearn multiple anti-patterns of freedom and it is a conscious effort every single day to keep up your guard. When someone rejects you, you never know if it is because of the specific task you completed, or an anti-pattern, or your past slave roots. 30% of your brain goes towards self-correcting and self-consciousness, leaving only 70% to focus on a task. That means only slaves that sport an IQ of 130 to keep up with a non-inhibited free person. Furthermore, every single one of your elderly and senior Slave relatives scolds you every time you do a free person action, for not honouring your heritage. On top of that, some unknown percentile of free people cannot see themselves taking orders from a former slave in a higher position than them at work. Add insult to injury, because it is very obvious you are a slave (all slaves have an extra body part) a mistake is instantly attributed to your slavehood, further adding to the bias libraries of free people and to your own self-consciousness. Forgot to mention, you still have to do 100% of your slave duties in 50% of your time as a free person. It is a HUGE f-ing hill to climb.

However since slaves have carried half of humanity's domestic needs for the past 5 centuries, they've also built up tremendous self-discipline and other valuable muscles required to survive that darn hill. The moment they are able to apply their freedom and start thinking and acting like independent enterprising people is the moment they solve all mundane unnecessary inefficiencies they have been doing to "honor" the heritage of servitude. Humanity gets half of its productivity back, and uses the brainpower to deploy to more important things than walking. Before that point you're feeding 100 people but get the productivity of 50. After that point, you are getting 100 at the productivity of 200 for the same feeding costs. Add the exponential growth of knowledge and tech and developed technology might beat an extinction level event to save itself one day because of the acceleration. Conditioning and history aught to teach us to stop treating other humans as inferior and to build systems that apply the intellect of every one of us. The alternative is a waste.

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