10 ms·

"continued pay disparity" here we go...

by Pigo 10y ago

prepend 10y ago
It would be interesting to see the data on this. I've worked in software development for 20 years and hired tons of people (maybe over 100). I think that professional jobs have the lowest pay disparity. I would imagine it's really hard to measure the pay gap between programmers because there are literally coders that are 2x or 5x more productive than other coders. So I don't think it's as simple as checking all the people with "programmer" in their title by gender.
- zephyrthenoble 10y ago
  https://www.cnet.com/news/biggest-pay-gap-in-america-computer-programmers/ https://www.cnet.com/news/biggest-pay-gap-in-america-compute...
  - prepend 10y ago
    This is all self-reported and not-representative data. So while an interesting story, is not evidence of a pay gap. There should be a statistical paper with a proper analysis somewhere, I'll try looking for it.
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      It's not proof of a pay gap, but it's evidence of a pay gap. Loads of other evidence of a pay gap is trivially available. I won't entertain the ignorance articulated here on that. You can Google. But I will add an aside that is less obvious. It's entirely possible to have perfectly even pay between every member of your team and still have an overall pay gap if you don't have good diversity in the upper levels of your organization. Many otherwise very good and well-meaning organizations fall prey to this. My position for example, as a distributed systems engineer, is very hard to get into. You don't learn about it in college, you don't find a ton of great books about it, and the field changes rapidly using terms and concepts that were only recently overturned. The way I got into it: a pair of very smart men decided to mentor me when I was younger. But were it not for that apprenticeship/mentorship, I would not be in the field. Women claim they have fewer opportunities for this and that follows with my observations. Therefore, my (higher paying and more in-demand) position is more difficult for many women to acquire.
      - 234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago
        No, it's actually not evidence of a pay gap. The study is flawed because it doesn't control for number of hours worked for men and women. It is well known that men work more hours, which would explain why "men get paid more". The study you linked is not wages per hour worked, it's just wages. The fact that this myth just keeps getting perpetuated by people is ridiculous. If companies could get away with hiring women for less money, why the heck would they ever conspire against women to hire less women!!! Get the same and/or high quality work from women for a cheaper price or conspire to not hire any women because I hate women I guess? - Pick One.
  - mattb314 10y ago
    The source: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/gender-pay-gap/ https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/gender-pay-gap/ The methodology: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/how-we-analyzed-the-gender-pay-gap-at-glassdoor/ https://www.glassdoor.com/research/how-we-analyzed-the-gende... I didn't find the editorializing in the cnet article very helpful.
- flukus 10y ago
  I've seen data local to my country that had showed it, but the problem was they grouped all IT workers together. Withe first level technical support being much more gender neutral you couldn't really read much into it.
- danso 10y ago
  Did you pay those 2x to 5x coders 2-5x more than the regular coder?
  - prepend 10y ago
    Sadly no. A 5x will make more, but certainly not 5x salary. In my last company with pay bands, you could see a 20-50% premium.
    - danso 10y ago
      I had assumed the answer was "no", and I asked the question because you seemed to insinuate that the pay gap correlates to merit, and that's why things can't be simplified to comparing people with "programmer" in the title. Well, yes, not all programmers are the same, nor are all definitions and valuations of the title "Programmer" -- which is partly why good data on the subject of "pay disparity" is hard to come by. But I'm arguing that even in some dream world where this data exists, merit would be a very tricky variable to incorporate. As you said, programmers who are 5x, or even 2x, are not paid by multiple-of-productivity. The fact that they aren't isn't so much a reflection of unfairness, but the reality that productivity of a programmer is not at all easy to quantify, and even if it were, not at all constant. The corollary of great programmers not being paid great wages is that there are some shitty programmers are not paid shitty wages. It's possible to accept that there isn't a pay disparity between males and females for a given job at a given company, while believing is that there's a greater tolerance for non-shitty wages to male shitty programmers.
CryoLogic 10y ago
I studied economics in college, and worked with a professor who was researching the "pay gap". We found that adjusting for a number of factors (profession, experience, education, etc.) the pay gap actually closes significantly. That isn't to say some companies don't have pay gap, but it is largely overblown and often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. tl;dr 70 cents on the dollar is not a real thing when you use your data correctly (at least in USA).
- tghw 10y ago
  I agree that talking about a $0.7X to the dollar pay gap isn't helpful, since it isn't controlled for a number of factors. But there still is a pay gap of 2-20%, , depending on the industry, attributable only to difference in gender. It's better than it's made out to be, but that there still is a gap is not right.
  - xienze 10y ago
    > attributable only to difference in gender. Ehhh you're really gonna need to show me this study, including detailed descriptions of the male and female cohorts showing that every male and female pair in the study are exactly the same age, have the same amount of experience, exact same education level, and work for the same company. Otherwise you can't really claim that the only difference is gender, now can you? The problem is, you can't come up with such a study. Furthermore, the idea that companies are paying women with "exactly the same" skills as men in "exactly the same" positions up to 20% less doesn't make any sense at all. Why would I ever hire a man in that case? I'd rather save 20% off the top. And if I had no choice but to hire a man, why would I pay 20% over the market rate? And how is it that this conspiracy to pay women less exists in every company, in every industry, in every country in the world?
    - rifung 10y ago
      > Furthermore, the idea that companies are paying women with "exactly the same" skills as men in "exactly the same" positions up to 20% less doesn't make any sense at all. Why would I ever hire a man in that case I don't think people typically perceive the issues facing women result from conscious bias. While there are some cases of blatant sexism, my impression is that people consider the more difficult and (hopefully) more common issue to be unconscious bias.
Tsagadai 10y ago
It definitely exists. Consider the pay disparity between men who negotiate well versus those who don't. Now look at HR studies that show women rarely negotiate (no links to studies from me right now but I have heard this anecdotally from hiring managers and I have read this before in business mags). Do you see how a problem can evolve? Do you know whether your equally skilled female colleagues are making less money than you? Have you asked? There is systemic pay discrimination in development jobs here in Australia so I can only assume it is similar in the US.
- joeblow9999 10y ago
  this just means there is a negotiation skills gap. there are a million parameters you can compare people on and determine who makes more money in life. good looking people make more on average too. If you're bad at negotiation it has nothing to do with being a man or woman. Are we supposed to nationalize or socialize individual negotiations?
  - tghw 10y ago
    Except for two things: 1. Women are expected (societally) to be more accommodating and compliant throughout most aspects of their lives, meaning they have less practice and comfort negotiating. 2. Even when women do negotiate, they end up being penalized for it, probably because of the expectations mentioned in point 1. See http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-for-women-who-negotiate http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-th.... Underlying study is here: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf
    - exclusiv 10y ago
      I agree with the parent on negotiating and I think your points are valid too. There's no one individual parameter in this discussion if you're looking to improve. I did see something in the article you noted that I'd like to question though: > that is, when their credentials have already been screened and they are in the interview phase—the focus shifts away from their competence and toward their social skills. That effect is absent for male candidates. I think it's possible that this is not hiring managers trying to screw over candidates or make it harder for women, but it's a likely bias from past experiences based on a team environment where men and women differ because of our inherent differences. Anecdotally, I've only seen women get nasty with other women to the point where it brews and stews and becomes problematic in a team environment. If women don't like men - they seem to navigate that better, perhaps because of your point in #1. Nonetheless, if men don't like other men - many times they'll blow up on each other but it doesn't linger. I've been in physical fights with great friends of mine, we've said nasty things, and in most cases the next day we let it go. Just in the last couple years, I've had to let go several senior women because they were causing stress and anxiety with other women employees. From my experience - it's more likely I'll have a cultural issue with a female (with other females) and it's more likely I'll fire a man due to competence. Navigating cultural problems is much harder than making a decision based on lack of production. Everyone generally understands when people are fired from incompetence. That being said - everyone has their own biases. It's not supposed to enter the picture in hiring but these considerations are often more subtle and are usually in consideration of one's current team and culture they wish to preserve. If you have some really strong personalities, male or female, you might be expressing concerns about social skills because you're trying to avoid a potential clash, not because you're out to get women. I wouldn't hire a male drill sergeant to work with my team which is more laid back and collaborative either.

"continued pay disparity" here we go...

by Pigo 10y ago

"continued pay disparity" here we go...

It would be interesting to see the data on this. I've worked in software development for 20 years and hired tons of people (maybe over 100). I think that professional jobs have the lowest pay disparity. I would imagine it's really hard to measure the pay gap between programmers because there are literally coders that are 2x or 5x more productive than other coders. So I don't think it's as simple as checking all the people with "programmer" in their title by gender.

zephyrthenoble 10y ago
https://www.cnet.com/news/biggest-pay-gap-in-america-computer-programmers/ https://www.cnet.com/news/biggest-pay-gap-in-america-compute...
- prepend 10y ago
  This is all self-reported and not-representative data. So while an interesting story, is not evidence of a pay gap. There should be a statistical paper with a proper analysis somewhere, I'll try looking for it.
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    It's not proof of a pay gap, but it's evidence of a pay gap. Loads of other evidence of a pay gap is trivially available. I won't entertain the ignorance articulated here on that. You can Google. But I will add an aside that is less obvious. It's entirely possible to have perfectly even pay between every member of your team and still have an overall pay gap if you don't have good diversity in the upper levels of your organization. Many otherwise very good and well-meaning organizations fall prey to this. My position for example, as a distributed systems engineer, is very hard to get into. You don't learn about it in college, you don't find a ton of great books about it, and the field changes rapidly using terms and concepts that were only recently overturned. The way I got into it: a pair of very smart men decided to mentor me when I was younger. But were it not for that apprenticeship/mentorship, I would not be in the field. Women claim they have fewer opportunities for this and that follows with my observations. Therefore, my (higher paying and more in-demand) position is more difficult for many women to acquire.
    - 234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago
      No, it's actually not evidence of a pay gap. The study is flawed because it doesn't control for number of hours worked for men and women. It is well known that men work more hours, which would explain why "men get paid more". The study you linked is not wages per hour worked, it's just wages. The fact that this myth just keeps getting perpetuated by people is ridiculous. If companies could get away with hiring women for less money, why the heck would they ever conspire against women to hire less women!!! Get the same and/or high quality work from women for a cheaper price or conspire to not hire any women because I hate women I guess? - Pick One.
- mattb314 10y ago
  The source: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/gender-pay-gap/ https://www.glassdoor.com/research/studies/gender-pay-gap/ The methodology: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/how-we-analyzed-the-gender-pay-gap-at-glassdoor/ https://www.glassdoor.com/research/how-we-analyzed-the-gende... I didn't find the editorializing in the cnet article very helpful.
flukus 10y ago
I've seen data local to my country that had showed it, but the problem was they grouped all IT workers together. Withe first level technical support being much more gender neutral you couldn't really read much into it.
danso 10y ago
Did you pay those 2x to 5x coders 2-5x more than the regular coder?
- prepend 10y ago
  Sadly no. A 5x will make more, but certainly not 5x salary. In my last company with pay bands, you could see a 20-50% premium.
  - danso 10y ago
    I had assumed the answer was "no", and I asked the question because you seemed to insinuate that the pay gap correlates to merit, and that's why things can't be simplified to comparing people with "programmer" in the title. Well, yes, not all programmers are the same, nor are all definitions and valuations of the title "Programmer" -- which is partly why good data on the subject of "pay disparity" is hard to come by. But I'm arguing that even in some dream world where this data exists, merit would be a very tricky variable to incorporate. As you said, programmers who are 5x, or even 2x, are not paid by multiple-of-productivity. The fact that they aren't isn't so much a reflection of unfairness, but the reality that productivity of a programmer is not at all easy to quantify, and even if it were, not at all constant. The corollary of great programmers not being paid great wages is that there are some shitty programmers are not paid shitty wages. It's possible to accept that there isn't a pay disparity between males and females for a given job at a given company, while believing is that there's a greater tolerance for non-shitty wages to male shitty programmers.

CryoLogic 10y ago

I studied economics in college, and worked with a professor who was researching the "pay gap". We found that adjusting for a number of factors (profession, experience, education, etc.) the pay gap actually closes significantly. That isn't to say some companies don't have pay gap, but it is largely overblown and often dissimilar pay is a result of other factors. tl;dr 70 cents on the dollar is not a real thing when you use your data correctly (at least in USA).

tghw 10y ago
I agree that talking about a $0.7X to the dollar pay gap isn't helpful, since it isn't controlled for a number of factors. But there still is a pay gap of 2-20%, , depending on the industry, attributable only to difference in gender. It's better than it's made out to be, but that there still is a gap is not right.
- xienze 10y ago
  > attributable only to difference in gender. Ehhh you're really gonna need to show me this study, including detailed descriptions of the male and female cohorts showing that every male and female pair in the study are exactly the same age, have the same amount of experience, exact same education level, and work for the same company. Otherwise you can't really claim that the only difference is gender, now can you? The problem is, you can't come up with such a study. Furthermore, the idea that companies are paying women with "exactly the same" skills as men in "exactly the same" positions up to 20% less doesn't make any sense at all. Why would I ever hire a man in that case? I'd rather save 20% off the top. And if I had no choice but to hire a man, why would I pay 20% over the market rate? And how is it that this conspiracy to pay women less exists in every company, in every industry, in every country in the world?
  - rifung 10y ago
    > Furthermore, the idea that companies are paying women with "exactly the same" skills as men in "exactly the same" positions up to 20% less doesn't make any sense at all. Why would I ever hire a man in that case I don't think people typically perceive the issues facing women result from conscious bias. While there are some cases of blatant sexism, my impression is that people consider the more difficult and (hopefully) more common issue to be unconscious bias.

Tsagadai 10y ago

It definitely exists. Consider the pay disparity between men who negotiate well versus those who don't. Now look at HR studies that show women rarely negotiate (no links to studies from me right now but I have heard this anecdotally from hiring managers and I have read this before in business mags). Do you see how a problem can evolve? Do you know whether your equally skilled female colleagues are making less money than you? Have you asked? There is systemic pay discrimination in development jobs here in Australia so I can only assume it is similar in the US.

joeblow9999 10y ago
this just means there is a negotiation skills gap. there are a million parameters you can compare people on and determine who makes more money in life. good looking people make more on average too. If you're bad at negotiation it has nothing to do with being a man or woman. Are we supposed to nationalize or socialize individual negotiations?
- tghw 10y ago
  Except for two things: 1. Women are expected (societally) to be more accommodating and compliant throughout most aspects of their lives, meaning they have less practice and comfort negotiating. 2. Even when women do negotiate, they end up being penalized for it, probably because of the expectations mentioned in point 1. See http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-the-dangers-for-women-who-negotiate http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/lean-out-th.... Underlying study is here: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfawis/bowles.pdf
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    I agree with the parent on negotiating and I think your points are valid too. There's no one individual parameter in this discussion if you're looking to improve. I did see something in the article you noted that I'd like to question though: > that is, when their credentials have already been screened and they are in the interview phase—the focus shifts away from their competence and toward their social skills. That effect is absent for male candidates. I think it's possible that this is not hiring managers trying to screw over candidates or make it harder for women, but it's a likely bias from past experiences based on a team environment where men and women differ because of our inherent differences. Anecdotally, I've only seen women get nasty with other women to the point where it brews and stews and becomes problematic in a team environment. If women don't like men - they seem to navigate that better, perhaps because of your point in #1. Nonetheless, if men don't like other men - many times they'll blow up on each other but it doesn't linger. I've been in physical fights with great friends of mine, we've said nasty things, and in most cases the next day we let it go. Just in the last couple years, I've had to let go several senior women because they were causing stress and anxiety with other women employees. From my experience - it's more likely I'll have a cultural issue with a female (with other females) and it's more likely I'll fire a man due to competence. Navigating cultural problems is much harder than making a decision based on lack of production. Everyone generally understands when people are fired from incompetence. That being said - everyone has their own biases. It's not supposed to enter the picture in hiring but these considerations are often more subtle and are usually in consideration of one's current team and culture they wish to preserve. If you have some really strong personalities, male or female, you might be expressing concerns about social skills because you're trying to avoid a potential clash, not because you're out to get women. I wouldn't hire a male drill sergeant to work with my team which is more laid back and collaborative either.