3 ms·
Hardly - if women's prevailing wage is $80 and men's is $100 (for men and women of equal ability), and you offer $85 but don't discriminate, you'll disproportio
by yummyfajitas 11y ago
Hardly - if women's prevailing wage is $80 and men's is $100 (for men and women of equal ability), and you offer $85 but don't discriminate, you'll disproportionately hire women and you'll reduce inequality by $5 x # of women hired.
You can safely do this without holding any beliefs about ability distributions.
- geofft 11y agoBut isn't that strictly financially worse for you than hiring women at $80 + epsilon, unless you have an expectation that the prevailing wage for women will soon increase? That is - if your primary motivation is doing what is economically rational (e.g. arbitrage), not reducing inequality, why would you ever do this, unless you have a strong belief that the market is undervaluing women?
- yummyfajitas 11y agoBecause in the real world there are transaction costs and people don't shift jobs over epsilon=$1. See also efficiency wages; for a couple of extra grand you can get a lot of extra loyalty and goodwill.