6 ms·

I'd be more interested in quantifying productivity and seeing if there's a systematic discrepancy between productivity and gender. Either the market is accurate

by smokeyj 10y ago

I'd be more interested in quantifying productivity and seeing if there's a systematic discrepancy between productivity and gender. Either the market is accurately pricing talent or there's a delta to be exploited. I think if a paper was released tomorrow that said "female programmers 30% undervalued as observed by double blind coding challenge" head hunters would fix that problem overnight.

cortesoft 10y ago
I think that the problem with your theory is that it relies on the idea that success on a coding challenge translates directly to value as an employee. I have managed many developers...... some of the ones that are the best coders are NOT the most productive nor the most valuable employees. There are a lot of skills that are needed besides ability to code.
ketzu 10y ago
Are you sure that a single data point like this would overthrow the "Intuition" of recruiters? If I understand [1] correct, thats fairly unlikely. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008.00058.x/abstract;jsessionid=811D0CA936B1BB858AF3A9C0E644C500.f01t03?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage= http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008....
yummyfajitas 10y ago
This was studied among lawyers. Female lawyers were significantly less productive. https://www.upf.edu/rs/_pdf/jornadesGenere/GenderGaps_Ferrer.pdf https://www.upf.edu/rs/_pdf/jornadesGenere/GenderGaps_Ferrer...
- patmcc 10y ago
  While interesting, that's a very particular definition of "productive" - male lawyers billed more hours. That doesn't necessarily correspond to more actual work done.
  - lettergram 10y ago
    Depends what you mean by "productive" - if the law firm makes more money off of male lawyers, that would mean they are more "productive"
    - cauterized 10y ago
      Directly, perhaps. What if the women were doing non-billable work that enabled their colleagues to bill more combined total hours than they would have had she done billable work instead?
      - d0lph 10y ago
        Are you referring to something, or just asking "what if"?
        cauterized 10y ago
        I'm challenging the parent's assumption that an individual's billable hours are an accurate representation of that person's contribution to a firm's top line, let alone bottom line.
  - killface 10y ago
    Accurately and consistently measuring performance of professionals has been all but impossible for the better part of the last century. I don't know why we keep trying. This is what peer reviews are for.
stale2002 10y ago
If I were to start a company today, I'd definitely be tempted to only hire women, and pay my entire workforce 80 cents on the dollar, instead of 70 cents on the dollar. I couldn't be sued for pay discrimination if ALL of my underpaid engineers are women, since there is no benchmark for a lawsuit to compare the discrimination too! I jest, but it really does surprise me that more companies aren't trying to aggressively poach underpaid women from other companies.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  If I were to start a company today, I'd definitely be tempted to only hire women, and pay my entire workforce 80 cents on the dollar, instead of 70 cents on the dollar. Except that correcting for experience, the pay gap shrinks to about 94 cents on the dollar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI I'm with John Green here: Much of the strong negative feeling around the gender pay gap comes from women as a whole feeling "squeezed" because they still do an out-sized amount of the unpaid work in our society. This also contributes to the absolute numbers pay gap, because women need to ask for more flexibility to be able to accomplish that unpaid work. I wish discussions around that issue were more nuanced and fact based. The answer is more complicated than the simplistic notion that one gender is being crappy to the other, in either direction.
  - bduerst 10y ago
    This is deceptive because it's an opinion piece on Youtube. The BLS study that controlled for occupation, industry, part-time vs. full-time, education levels, and other factors found that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar [1]. It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". [1] https://www.shrm.org/Advocacy/Issues/CivilRights/Documents/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf https://www.shrm.org/Advocacy/Issues/CivilRights/Documents/G...
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      This is deceptive because it's an opinion piece on Youtube. The BLS study that controlled for occupation, industry, part-time vs. full-time, education levels, and other factors found that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar [1]. It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". Wow. Congrats on an incredible spin job! I'm saying there is a gender disparity, and that this is apparent in the sentiments of women! (Feeling "squeezed") Yet somehow you are spinning it as if I'm saying the opposite! I also assert that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar -- right there in black and white in my gp comment. Are you somehow suggesting you are disagreeing with me by restating it in your comment? It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". Please re-read my comment. I am asserting that a) 70% or 80% is not factual. b) The factual number is more like 94%. c) The issue extends beyond that 94% number, involving the actual demands on women's time through societal expectations around essential but unpaid work done by women -- Women are effectively working more for less renumeration, but the issue is more nuanced than just one number can relate.

by smokeyj 10y ago

cortesoft 10y ago

I think that the problem with your theory is that it relies on the idea that success on a coding challenge translates directly to value as an employee. I have managed many developers...... some of the ones that are the best coders are NOT the most productive nor the most valuable employees. There are a lot of skills that are needed besides ability to code.

ketzu 10y ago

Are you sure that a single data point like this would overthrow the "Intuition" of recruiters? If I understand [1] correct, thats fairly unlikely. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008.00058.x/abstract;jsessionid=811D0CA936B1BB858AF3A9C0E644C500.f01t03?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage= http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008....

yummyfajitas 10y ago

This was studied among lawyers. Female lawyers were significantly less productive. https://www.upf.edu/rs/_pdf/jornadesGenere/GenderGaps_Ferrer.pdf https://www.upf.edu/rs/_pdf/jornadesGenere/GenderGaps_Ferrer...

patmcc 10y ago
While interesting, that's a very particular definition of "productive" - male lawyers billed more hours. That doesn't necessarily correspond to more actual work done.
- lettergram 10y ago
  Depends what you mean by "productive" - if the law firm makes more money off of male lawyers, that would mean they are more "productive"
  - cauterized 10y ago
    Directly, perhaps. What if the women were doing non-billable work that enabled their colleagues to bill more combined total hours than they would have had she done billable work instead?
    - d0lph 10y ago
      Are you referring to something, or just asking "what if"?
      - cauterized 10y ago
        I'm challenging the parent's assumption that an individual's billable hours are an accurate representation of that person's contribution to a firm's top line, let alone bottom line.
- killface 10y ago
  Accurately and consistently measuring performance of professionals has been all but impossible for the better part of the last century. I don't know why we keep trying. This is what peer reviews are for.

stale2002 10y ago

If I were to start a company today, I'd definitely be tempted to only hire women, and pay my entire workforce 80 cents on the dollar, instead of 70 cents on the dollar. I couldn't be sued for pay discrimination if ALL of my underpaid engineers are women, since there is no benchmark for a lawsuit to compare the discrimination too! I jest, but it really does surprise me that more companies aren't trying to aggressively poach underpaid women from other companies.

stcredzero 10y ago
If I were to start a company today, I'd definitely be tempted to only hire women, and pay my entire workforce 80 cents on the dollar, instead of 70 cents on the dollar. Except that correcting for experience, the pay gap shrinks to about 94 cents on the dollar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI I'm with John Green here: Much of the strong negative feeling around the gender pay gap comes from women as a whole feeling "squeezed" because they still do an out-sized amount of the unpaid work in our society. This also contributes to the absolute numbers pay gap, because women need to ask for more flexibility to be able to accomplish that unpaid work. I wish discussions around that issue were more nuanced and fact based. The answer is more complicated than the simplistic notion that one gender is being crappy to the other, in either direction.
- bduerst 10y ago
  This is deceptive because it's an opinion piece on Youtube. The BLS study that controlled for occupation, industry, part-time vs. full-time, education levels, and other factors found that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar [1]. It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". [1] https://www.shrm.org/Advocacy/Issues/CivilRights/Documents/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf https://www.shrm.org/Advocacy/Issues/CivilRights/Documents/G...
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    This is deceptive because it's an opinion piece on Youtube. The BLS study that controlled for occupation, industry, part-time vs. full-time, education levels, and other factors found that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar [1]. It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". Wow. Congrats on an incredible spin job! I'm saying there is a gender disparity, and that this is apparent in the sentiments of women! (Feeling "squeezed") Yet somehow you are spinning it as if I'm saying the opposite! I also assert that there is still a gender pay wage gap of 94 cents to the dollar -- right there in black and white in my gp comment. Are you somehow suggesting you are disagreeing with me by restating it in your comment? It's not-fact-based to keep touting the 77% number, but it's just as much not-fact-based to claim there isn't a gender wage gap because women feel "squeezed". Please re-read my comment. I am asserting that a) 70% or 80% is not factual. b) The factual number is more like 94%. c) The issue extends beyond that 94% number, involving the actual demands on women's time through societal expectations around essential but unpaid work done by women -- Women are effectively working more for less renumeration, but the issue is more nuanced than just one number can relate.