4 ms·

There is a note underneath the chart that the difference between lower class women and men is not statistically significant - so we don't know if there is a dif

by kolinko 10y ago

There is a note underneath the chart that the difference between lower class women and men is not statistically significant - so we don't know if there is a difference between men and women there.

hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
You can do the math here, https://abtestguide.com/calc/ https://abtestguide.com/calc/, and in any case it is at least very close to "statistical significance", depending on how you define it, that lower class men got fewer callbacks than lower class women. But the point is that lower class men DID receive a lot fewer callbacks than higher class men, so clearly it is a mistake to attribute "male privilege" equally to both groups.
- red_admiral 10y ago
  "close to statistical significance" is one of those phrases I dislike because it's almost designed to deceive. To the trained statistician it means "not statistically significant" but to the average reader it suggests there's something more there than there should be. What we can safely say is that this study did NOT support the hypothesis that there is gender privilige for men within the lower classes in landing top law jobs, and that it would be interesting to repeat this study with a larger sample size.
  - hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
    While I agree with your conclusion, I have a problem that people think "statistically significant" is some sort of golden, binary rule, instead of "statistically significant at X% confidence level". It's not like 95% confidence level was ordained by God, and it leads to p-value hacking. I'd argue that if you come out at 94% or 96%, both of these warrant further study.
FT_intern 10y ago
Note that it does not ever say that the difference between upper class women and upper class men was statistically significant. > The differences in callback rates for higher-class women, lower-class men and lower-class women were not statistically significant, but higher-class men received significantly more callbacks than all other categories It is very suspicious that the wording was "significantly more" instead of "statistically significant", especially when she specifically called out statistical significance for the other groups right before it. If the difference was not statistically significant, that fact is intentionally and malevolently obfuscated.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  This is not an ambiguous phrasing; this is a standard way of writing the summary in prose. There is nothing remotely “suspicious” or “malevolent” here. It clearly expresses that the only one of four categories whose callback rate rises to the level of statistical significance (presumably something like p < 0.05 of null hypothesis that all rates are the same) was the rate for high-class men. The reason the sentence doesn’t include the word “statistically” in the second half is that it would sound incredibly awkward, and is not necessary to repeat.
- tgb 10y ago
  This isn't an academic journal. But, of course, you can go read their actually published piece. What they say there is: "The higher-class male applicant had a callback rate of 16.25 percent, more than four times as high as the average callback rate for the other three applicants, who collectively generated just nine interview invitations from 235 applications, a callback rate of 3.83 percent. This fourfold difference is significant not only statistically (p < .001) but also substantively, and its magnitude is especially striking when considering the fact that applicants’ entire law school records and all academic and professional experiences were identical". So no need for conspiracy theories.
  - FT_intern 10y ago
    There's no need for snark. My point still stands. Statistical significance for upper class men vs. upper class women is never mentioned. The statistics in this instance are cooked and very misleading. It does not prove the author's point. The major claim in this article is that upper class men did much better than upper class women: > Why did the higher-class man do so much better than the higher-class woman? Yet the statistic only compares upper class men to everyone else. Why did the authors choose to only mention the p-value for one category vs. everyone else? Why not other data slices? The authors clearly calculated the p-value between individual groups (from their "not statistically significant" comment). Why did they not list these values? It's a choice between negligent data analysis or intentional omission.

by kolinko 10y ago

There is a note underneath the chart that the difference between lower class women and men is not statistically significant - so we don't know if there is a difference between men and women there.

hn_throwaway_99 10y ago

You can do the math here, https://abtestguide.com/calc/ https://abtestguide.com/calc/, and in any case it is at least very close to "statistical significance", depending on how you define it, that lower class men got fewer callbacks than lower class women. But the point is that lower class men DID receive a lot fewer callbacks than higher class men, so clearly it is a mistake to attribute "male privilege" equally to both groups.

red_admiral 10y ago
"close to statistical significance" is one of those phrases I dislike because it's almost designed to deceive. To the trained statistician it means "not statistically significant" but to the average reader it suggests there's something more there than there should be. What we can safely say is that this study did NOT support the hypothesis that there is gender privilige for men within the lower classes in landing top law jobs, and that it would be interesting to repeat this study with a larger sample size.
- hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
  While I agree with your conclusion, I have a problem that people think "statistically significant" is some sort of golden, binary rule, instead of "statistically significant at X% confidence level". It's not like 95% confidence level was ordained by God, and it leads to p-value hacking. I'd argue that if you come out at 94% or 96%, both of these warrant further study.

FT_intern 10y ago

Note that it does not ever say that the difference between upper class women and upper class men was statistically significant. > The differences in callback rates for higher-class women, lower-class men and lower-class women were not statistically significant, but higher-class men received significantly more callbacks than all other categories It is very suspicious that the wording was "significantly more" instead of "statistically significant", especially when she specifically called out statistical significance for the other groups right before it. If the difference was not statistically significant, that fact is intentionally and malevolently obfuscated.

jacobolus 10y ago
This is not an ambiguous phrasing; this is a standard way of writing the summary in prose. There is nothing remotely “suspicious” or “malevolent” here. It clearly expresses that the only one of four categories whose callback rate rises to the level of statistical significance (presumably something like p < 0.05 of null hypothesis that all rates are the same) was the rate for high-class men. The reason the sentence doesn’t include the word “statistically” in the second half is that it would sound incredibly awkward, and is not necessary to repeat.
tgb 10y ago
This isn't an academic journal. But, of course, you can go read their actually published piece. What they say there is: "The higher-class male applicant had a callback rate of 16.25 percent, more than four times as high as the average callback rate for the other three applicants, who collectively generated just nine interview invitations from 235 applications, a callback rate of 3.83 percent. This fourfold difference is significant not only statistically (p < .001) but also substantively, and its magnitude is especially striking when considering the fact that applicants’ entire law school records and all academic and professional experiences were identical". So no need for conspiracy theories.
- FT_intern 10y ago
  There's no need for snark. My point still stands. Statistical significance for upper class men vs. upper class women is never mentioned. The statistics in this instance are cooked and very misleading. It does not prove the author's point. The major claim in this article is that upper class men did much better than upper class women: > Why did the higher-class man do so much better than the higher-class woman? Yet the statistic only compares upper class men to everyone else. Why did the authors choose to only mention the p-value for one category vs. everyone else? Why not other data slices? The authors clearly calculated the p-value between individual groups (from their "not statistically significant" comment). Why did they not list these values? It's a choice between negligent data analysis or intentional omission.