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> 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, i

> 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/ http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/): "No matter how many times this wage gap claim is decisively refuted by economists, it always comes back. The bottom line: the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing."

nsxwolf 10y ago
Doesn't matter. They've won this point by repetition. I suspect most of them even know it is wrong. There's no defense against the rhetorical punch of "77 cents on the dollar".
- thiht 10y ago
  The usual "So why don't companies hire more women if they're cheaper?" always work. It's also fallacious but at least it shuts some mouths.
actionwords 10y ago
facts do not matter. facts have a well understood cis-white-male bias. facts are oppression. only through doublethink can we have True Equality and a liberation from the factual.
mehta 10y ago
A relevant podcast from sysk that aired recently: http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-gender-pay-gap-works/ http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-gender-pa... (not affiliated with them. Just a listener) They go into exactly the point you make and talk about how gender gap still does exists (although no so extreme).
RodericDay 10y ago
The pay gap of 77c/$ still matters. Not only does the gap persist to a lower extent when you control for everything, "controlling for everything" is not actually a clarifying approach when discussing the gender gap issue. see: "The problem with controlling for 'all other factors' when looking at pay discrimination" (https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/49k23i/the_problem_with_controlling_for_all_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/49k23i/the_pr...)
- djsumdog 10y ago
  But it's not 77cents: > Even after adjusting for type of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92 cents for each dollar. The 77 cent thing is a myth and the 92cent thing isn't even that massive a gap. I have a hypothesis: if you could measure the confidence of both men and women and relate them to job type and income, I bet you'd have a stronger coloration than gender. It's pretty difficult to test because things like confidence are subjective. There's an article in Salon called "The Confidence Gap" that shows women often don't ask for higher paying positions because they lack confidence in their abilities.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    Without controlling for job title, how much does the average man make, and the average woman make? I'm under the impression that the 77c figure is related to this "total" disparity, that better accounts for the separate, but related, issue of "predominantly female" fields paying less than male ones.
    - djsumdog 10y ago
      That's another issue entirely. Also you need to take into account things like maternity leave as well as women who man chose not to work full time, that bring that number down as well.
  - mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
    They also don't ask because when they do they are more likely to be shot down, just like they are less likely to be hired in the first place. When women ask for something they are seen as complaining, when men ask for the same thing, it's seen as confidence.
Chinjut 10y ago
Oh, ok. So, logically, it must just be that women-associated occupations tend to be lower payed than men, women tend to be slotted into lower positions than men, women aren't encouraged into or supported in higher education the same way as men, women do not receive job tenure as easily as men, and/or gendered pressures cause women to work less hours per week (on careers rather than, e.g., a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities) than men, resulting in women being paid on average 23% less than men. I guess that's alright, then.
- technocodes 10y ago
  No it's like saying most investment bankers are male and make 500k a year, most nurses are female and make 70k a year, Injustice! Look at that pay gap! Outrageous! - It makes zero sense. EDIT: What I meant to say is men go into different careers than woman and for different reasons. Usually men go after higher paying jobs (investment banking). When people compute the pay gap they dont take this into account, so they compare pay across industries (investment banking to nursing) which is meaningless, and likely is propaganda.
  - eli 10y ago
    Is there something about the male gender that makes one a better investment banker? If not, how do you explain why that is in the first place?
    - morgante 10y ago
      There's abundant evidence that women prefer to work fewer hours than men and working insane hours is (for better or worse) a requirement of investment banking. Whether the preference for fewer hours is innate or learned I don't know.
    - technocodes 10y ago
      Women flat out don't want to do it. Some do, but not many.
      - 10y ago
rayiner 10y ago
The quoted economists found an 8% gap adjusting for those factors.
- hmmm2 10y ago
  Looking at the factors quoted they didn't include hours worked per week. Men typically work more overtime.
- Lawtonfogle 10y ago
  Removing even more factors have found that gap diminish even more. In some cases, looking at young adults with college educations with out children (with some other factors also made equal), they found that women out earned men.
geofft 10y ago
That interpretation is misleading for a few reasons. One is that "to the point of vanishing" is still very nonzero. There's a report by Consad Corporation prepared for the Department of Labor that reaches the figure 5-7% after accounting for differences in jobs (their website is down at the moment), even though it concludes that "there may be nothing to correct." That's also the number Sommers herself writes in her HuffPo article she cites in that Time article: "After controlling for several relevant factors (though some were left out, as we shall see), they found that the wage gap narrowed to only 6.6 cents." So the Cornell claim of 8% is basically the same. I don't think there's an argument to be made that a 23% gender pay gap is a scandal but a 5-8% gap is totally fine. The other is that occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked is affected by existing wages. I was unemployed by choice for several months last year, learning Rust and working on a few open-source projects, and I became a more valuable job candidate as a result of that. I could not have done that without the savings to take those months off. If my previous job had paid me anywhere from 8% to 23% less, I would probably not have decided to take those months off, and in return I would have been a less competitive candidate and my job would probably have been one of lower position.
serge2k 10y ago
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.
- whatok 10y ago
  > 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.
  - omonra 10y ago
    '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?
eli 10y ago
Resumes with male names are ranked higher than identical resumes with female names.
- whatok 10y ago
  Citation please.
  - mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
    There are lots of them: https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&oq=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&aqs=chrome..69i57.783j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+...
    - whatok 10y ago
      I know that. I take issue when it is stated as an absolute fact when the most well-known study was done in a very specific field and therefore makes it hard to really extrapolate out to the entire workforce.
      - eli 10y ago
        I'd definitely be interested to read any studies of other fields that have failed to show a similar effect.
  - eli 10y ago
    Here are the first two on Google. I'm sure you can find more http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
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.
- chrisfosterelli 10y ago
  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 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract
  - electrograv 10y ago
    > 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 most women are there instead of working independently!" 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.
    - nwah1 10y ago
      Hmm more like "those awful males are so competitive in pursuing career advancement. Maybe testosterone has some sort of effect."
      - whatok 10y ago
        I'd argue it more stems from childhood with the way boys are encouraged to approach situations and how that differs from the treatment girls receive. Boys are encouraged to be more aggressive while girls are supposed to be timid. When it's that deeply ingrained in society, you do not fix the problem through posting infographics on the White House website.
bobwaycott 10y ago
And by "the evidence", you mean none of the evidence that demonstrably shows a pay gap, right?

nsxwolf 10y ago

Doesn't matter. They've won this point by repetition. I suspect most of them even know it is wrong. There's no defense against the rhetorical punch of "77 cents on the dollar".

thiht 10y ago
The usual "So why don't companies hire more women if they're cheaper?" always work. It's also fallacious but at least it shuts some mouths.

actionwords 10y ago

facts do not matter. facts have a well understood cis-white-male bias. facts are oppression. only through doublethink can we have True Equality and a liberation from the factual.

mehta 10y ago

A relevant podcast from sysk that aired recently: http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-gender-pay-gap-works/ http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-gender-pa... (not affiliated with them. Just a listener) They go into exactly the point you make and talk about how gender gap still does exists (although no so extreme).

RodericDay 10y ago

The pay gap of 77c/$ still matters. Not only does the gap persist to a lower extent when you control for everything, "controlling for everything" is not actually a clarifying approach when discussing the gender gap issue. see: "The problem with controlling for 'all other factors' when looking at pay discrimination" (https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/49k23i/the_problem_with_controlling_for_all_other/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/49k23i/the_pr...)

djsumdog 10y ago
But it's not 77cents: > Even after adjusting for type of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92 cents for each dollar. The 77 cent thing is a myth and the 92cent thing isn't even that massive a gap. I have a hypothesis: if you could measure the confidence of both men and women and relate them to job type and income, I bet you'd have a stronger coloration than gender. It's pretty difficult to test because things like confidence are subjective. There's an article in Salon called "The Confidence Gap" that shows women often don't ask for higher paying positions because they lack confidence in their abilities.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  Without controlling for job title, how much does the average man make, and the average woman make? I'm under the impression that the 77c figure is related to this "total" disparity, that better accounts for the separate, but related, issue of "predominantly female" fields paying less than male ones.
  - djsumdog 10y ago
    That's another issue entirely. Also you need to take into account things like maternity leave as well as women who man chose not to work full time, that bring that number down as well.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
  They also don't ask because when they do they are more likely to be shot down, just like they are less likely to be hired in the first place. When women ask for something they are seen as complaining, when men ask for the same thing, it's seen as confidence.

Chinjut 10y ago

Oh, ok. So, logically, it must just be that women-associated occupations tend to be lower payed than men, women tend to be slotted into lower positions than men, women aren't encouraged into or supported in higher education the same way as men, women do not receive job tenure as easily as men, and/or gendered pressures cause women to work less hours per week (on careers rather than, e.g., a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities) than men, resulting in women being paid on average 23% less than men. I guess that's alright, then.

technocodes 10y ago
No it's like saying most investment bankers are male and make 500k a year, most nurses are female and make 70k a year, Injustice! Look at that pay gap! Outrageous! - It makes zero sense. EDIT: What I meant to say is men go into different careers than woman and for different reasons. Usually men go after higher paying jobs (investment banking). When people compute the pay gap they dont take this into account, so they compare pay across industries (investment banking to nursing) which is meaningless, and likely is propaganda.
- eli 10y ago
  Is there something about the male gender that makes one a better investment banker? If not, how do you explain why that is in the first place?
  - morgante 10y ago
    There's abundant evidence that women prefer to work fewer hours than men and working insane hours is (for better or worse) a requirement of investment banking. Whether the preference for fewer hours is innate or learned I don't know.
  - technocodes 10y ago
    Women flat out don't want to do it. Some do, but not many.
    - 10y ago

rayiner 10y ago

The quoted economists found an 8% gap adjusting for those factors.

hmmm2 10y ago
Looking at the factors quoted they didn't include hours worked per week. Men typically work more overtime.
Lawtonfogle 10y ago
Removing even more factors have found that gap diminish even more. In some cases, looking at young adults with college educations with out children (with some other factors also made equal), they found that women out earned men.

geofft 10y ago

That interpretation is misleading for a few reasons. One is that "to the point of vanishing" is still very nonzero. There's a report by Consad Corporation prepared for the Department of Labor that reaches the figure 5-7% after accounting for differences in jobs (their website is down at the moment), even though it concludes that "there may be nothing to correct." That's also the number Sommers herself writes in her HuffPo article she cites in that Time article: "After controlling for several relevant factors (though some were left out, as we shall see), they found that the wage gap narrowed to only 6.6 cents." So the Cornell claim of 8% is basically the same. I don't think there's an argument to be made that a 23% gender pay gap is a scandal but a 5-8% gap is totally fine. The other is that occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked is affected by existing wages. I was unemployed by choice for several months last year, learning Rust and working on a few open-source projects, and I became a more valuable job candidate as a result of that. I could not have done that without the savings to take those months off. If my previous job had paid me anywhere from 8% to 23% less, I would probably not have decided to take those months off, and in return I would have been a less competitive candidate and my job would probably have been one of lower position.

serge2k 10y ago

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.

whatok 10y ago
> 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.
- omonra 10y ago
  '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?

eli 10y ago

Resumes with male names are ranked higher than identical resumes with female names.

whatok 10y ago
Citation please.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
  There are lots of them: https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&oq=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&aqs=chrome..69i57.783j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+...
  - whatok 10y ago
    I know that. I take issue when it is stated as an absolute fact when the most well-known study was done in a very specific field and therefore makes it hard to really extrapolate out to the entire workforce.
    - eli 10y ago
      I'd definitely be interested to read any studies of other fields that have failed to show a similar effect.
- eli 10y ago
  Here are the first two on Google. I'm sure you can find more http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract

mrgoldenbrown 10y ago

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.

chrisfosterelli 10y ago
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 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract
- electrograv 10y ago
  > 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 most women are there instead of working independently!" 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.
  - nwah1 10y ago
    Hmm more like "those awful males are so competitive in pursuing career advancement. Maybe testosterone has some sort of effect."
    - whatok 10y ago
      I'd argue it more stems from childhood with the way boys are encouraged to approach situations and how that differs from the treatment girls receive. Boys are encouraged to be more aggressive while girls are supposed to be timid. When it's that deeply ingrained in society, you do not fix the problem through posting infographics on the White House website.

bobwaycott 10y ago

And by "the evidence", you mean none of the evidence that demonstrably shows a pay gap, right?