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More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

theguardian.com

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Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#91

Post by nowo »

throwaway9853 wrote: post #78
jorgemf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if those facts are true, Google must have programs to make things fair. For same responsibilities same salary. You can say women are different than men or say they are exactly equals. Whatever is your position for the same job you must have the same salary. There shouldn't be any discussion here.

> For same responsibilities same salary. Why is that? If there is someone who is willing to take on those responsibilities for less pay, well that's just fine for the company and I think that people tend to forget that Google (and many other IT companies) is a for-profit company. For me at least, I've always seen salary negotiations as somewhat of a "right person at the right moment". If you're very lucky and the com…

This is one of those arguments the grand parent was talking about. Unfortunately this argument is why someone has a larger salary than someone else, not why there are disparities between groups. Unless different groups unequally finds themselves being "right person at the right moment", it should statistically average over time.

That said, I don't see a good reason to defend salaries that don't match performance. It's sometimes a reality, but still not desirable. Especially since many times being the "right person at the right moment" isn't luck. It's knowing the right people and having that matters more than your performance.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#92

Post by throwaway9853 »

jorgemf wrote: post #89
throwaway9853 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For same responsibilities same salary. Why is that? If there is someone who is willing to take on those responsibilities for less pay, well that's just fine for the company and I think that people tend to forget that Google (and many other IT companies) is a for-profit company. For me at least, I've always seen salary negotiations as somewhat of a "right person at the right moment". If you're very lucky and the com…

Throwaway account created one hour ago? So you say that some who is starving if Africa we shouldn't care because he wasn't at the right place at the right moment? If you answer is that it is not the same case where do you put the line? Because your argument for getting things is basically luck.

Yes and it's luck + skills. Because otherwise you wouldn't even be in that position in the first place. And what does Africa have to do with this? This was related to people working at Google and/or similar companies.

So you're point is that we should give unqualified people jobs that they are clearly not meant for just because they are having a hard time? There are NGOs and state help for this. Of course if I'm having a hard time, I'd like someone to help me, but the first one to help me should be ME. I should do everything that is in my power to help myself, I shouldn't expect help from others.

Don't know if that is what you were asking, but please stay on the topic of the discussion next time.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#93

Post by yellowapple »

jorgemf wrote: post #89
throwaway9853 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For same responsibilities same salary. Why is that? If there is someone who is willing to take on those responsibilities for less pay, well that's just fine for the company and I think that people tend to forget that Google (and many other IT companies) is a for-profit company. For me at least, I've always seen salary negotiations as somewhat of a "right person at the right moment". If you're very lucky and the com…

Throwaway account created one hour ago? So you say that some who is starving if Africa we shouldn't care because he wasn't at the right place at the right moment? If you answer is that it is not the same case where do you put the line? Because your argument for getting things is basically luck.

"Because your argument for getting things is basically luck."

Luck is really what drives a successful career and life:

- Lucky to have been born in the right place

- Lucky to have the right skin color

- Lucky to have the right sex/gender/orientation (and for those to match up in the "right" way)

- Lucky to have the right family

- Lucky to have an outgoing and/or extroverted personality

- Lucky to have an interest in a skill that's in demand

- Lucky to be in the workforce during a time when that skill is in demand

- Lucky to be in a location where that skill is in demand

- Lucky to have been hired amid the dozens or even hundreds of other candidates applying for your desired position (this is less of a problem now, but was a huge problem just a few years ago when labor demand was nowhere close to being higher than labor supply)

- Lucky to have been hired by a company that actually wants to give out raises

- Lucky to not have been laid off or otherwise terminated for circumstances beyond your control

The list goes on and on and on. I certainly think we should care about the implications of personal success and well-being being driven heavily by luck rather than actual merit. The case where someone is starving in Africa is indeed a case of "wrong place and/or time", and we as a species really ought to be cognizant of that and try to work toward "wrong place and/or time" being less severe of a problem.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#94

Post by manigandham »

needlessly2 wrote: post #27
anon12345690 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if person A asks for a raise but person B doesnt? Salaries are negotiations.

and why would men at Google ask for raises while women at Google would not? Obviously, both groups have competitive skills in the industry. I'm sure you will bring up the studies that men are more likely to negotiate. However, that applies for a more general population who work at middle tier roles at middle tier companies. People who work at Google have more bargaining power than the general population.

> However, that applies for a more general population who work at middle tier roles at middle tier companies.

These are all separate orthogonal axis, average traits of men and women still apply even if your non-average on intelligence or some other dimension.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#95

Post by rayiner »

mpweiher wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole thing and I think the allegations hold. There is one citation to a scientific article in the memo: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.... . It's a meta analysis that looks at abstract personality traits (agreeableness, people-orientation) in studies involving socialized adults. The big takeaway is that these studies show that women are more "agreeable" and "people-oriented."…

> that software is "thing-oriented" rather than "people-oriented Yes, that is the dominant view. You may have a different opinion (which you haven't substantiated except by assertion), but that's just that, your opinion. > without proof, that these observed differences are stable across cultures. Actually, most of the studies that replicated these findings (with large effect sizes and very large sample sizes) were cr…

> Yes, that is the dominant view. You may have a different opinion (which you haven't substantiated except by assertion), but that's just that, your opinion.

Whether the view is widely held has nothing to do with whether its supported by evidence. You can't claim to be making a scientific argument, when a major link in your chain of reasoning is nothing more than an appeal to preconception.

> Actually, most of the studies that replicated these findings (with large effect sizes and very large sample sizes) were cross cultural.

The studies don't show that occupational preferences are stable across cultures (and in fact they're not). The fact that places like China have much higher representation of women in STEM is a smoldering hole in the theory that these preferences are biological.

> One of the most interesting finding (that's also been replicated), is that gender differences in these traits increase the more egalitarian the society. This is the exact opposite of what you'd expect if the differences were caused by cultural pressure.

That conflates two different things: what gender roles a society imposes on adults, and how the society socializes children. Those two things are not necessarily linked. Take India for example: it's not very egalitarian; women are still strongly encouraged to stay home with kids (and the work force is 70% men). On the other hand, half of STEM majors in India are women. How do you explain that result if you assume that preferences are biological?

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#97

Post by rayiner »

ardit33 wrote: post #83
rayiner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole thing and I think the allegations hold. There is one citation to a scientific article in the memo: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.... . It's a meta analysis that looks at abstract personality traits (agreeableness, people-orientation) in studies involving socialized adults. The big takeaway is that these studies show that women are more "agreeable" and "people-oriented."…

all your examples are from repressive regimes (either economically, or politically). You see very low participation rates on hard STEM among women on countries where women have both large degree of economic and political freedom. Basically, when women have choices, they choose against hard STEM. It is not just the US, but other countries with even better gender relations (Norwawy, Sweden, Denmark), it seems women jus…

> all your examples are from repressive regimes (either economically, or politically).

So socialization doesn't affect peoples' preferences, except in societies where socialization does affect peoples' preferences. Got it.

> Basically, when women have choices, they choose against hard STEM.

1) This presupposes, without evidence, that girls in the U.S., Denmark, etc., aren't socialized differently than boys, even if they are not actively discriminated against in terms of careers.

2) This uses "hard STEM" as a wiggle word. Under any rational definition, math is "harder STEM" than computer science. (And frankly, I'd argue that so is chemistry and biology.) Yet, the representation of women in math and physical sciences majors is twice as high as in CS: https://higheredtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nsc-bs-....

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#98

Post by dp-tyvek »

xapata wrote: post #68
rimliu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure you can find big pay differences when comparing only men with the similar education and experience.

You are proposing the model: wage ~ education + experience + error If the errors are correlated with education or experience, that indicates a confounding variable problem. Most data shows that including race and gender as explanatory factors improves the model: wage ~ education + experience + gender + race + error Until the coefficients of gender and race become approximately zero, one can say that the market is dis…

According to my understanding, rimliu is proposing that

  wage ~ education + experience + gender + race + additional_factors + error
where additional_factors consists of other unknown factors (e.g. charisma, intelligence, appearance?). In which case, if education, experience, gender and race are kept constant, there is still going to be a fair bit of variance in wage caused by these unknown factors.

Either way, it would be pretty hard to model when these factors are far from orthogonal. Imagine the impact race would have on work experience if race is a big factor when hiring people.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#99

Post by Tyr42 »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #2

How is Google handling pay? Is there a level system with fixed pay levels? Or can anyone negotiate his salary - in limits - when starting his job?

Check out the court ruling in the labour vs Google case:

https://www.oalj.dol.gov/Decisions/ALJ/OFC/2017/OFCCP_-_SAN_...

Page 10 has the information:

A “compensation team” sets the salary for each hire. Tr. 165-69. The team has no direct contact with the applicant and does not have the applicant’s name, gender, race, or ethnicity. Id. For industry hires, the committee might be given the applicant’s current compensation but no earlier compensation data. Tr. 175-77.

For the employees included in the September 2015 “snapshot,” about 20 percent were campus hires. Tr. 197-98. The only circumstance under which Google might increase the starting compensation for a campus hire is when the applicant has a competing offer greater Google’s. Google will not offer a larger salary or annual bonus plan, but it might offer a larger sign-on bonus or one-time stock grant. Tr. 207, 210-16, 223. There are no starting pay negotiations, and Google considers no other factors. Tr. 197-98.

Re: More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap

#100

Post by patrickaljord »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #82
patrickaljord wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no poaching" is illegal but it doesn't go against free market principles. It's just companies willingly agreeing not to poach, as long as there is no coercion, it doesn't go against free market principles. Now, the question of whether it is unethical or not is a whole other topic. I think that "no poaching" is not very efficient anyway as it usually happens between incumbent companies only whose stock isn't growing…

"no poaching" is illegal but it doesn't go against free market principles. I call bullshit. A no poaching agreement very much resembles a cartel. Same as companies colluding in order to squeeze the highest possible value out of, say, tenders for public works. If poaching agreements are in line with free markets then so are lying, cheating and violating just about every aspect which is the basis of contract law.

I don't think no-poaching agreements infringe anyone's liberty and it that sense I don't see how it goes against free market principles. If you sign a contract with your employee saying you won't do no-poaching then doing so would be a breach of contract obviously but that would be a specific use-case. I totally agree that it breaks the laws though as it is illegal in the US. I was talking about free-market principles and no-poaching doesn't break these principles.
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