7 ms·

Sexual harassment and payment inequality came up a lot in the last women in computer science event I went to.

mantas 10y ago
> payment inequality Perceived or real? I'm yet to hear about a company that has policy to pay women less. Most have personally-discussed salaries though. If some ladies are paid less, they probably don't haggle as well. What should we do? Deny custom salaries and personal raises?
- webvictim 10y ago
  There are no companies which have such a policy, because it's illegal.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    Speeding is also illegal. True, there are no companies that speed, but I think that's just because they can't drive.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Yeah, no kidding, nobody has a policy to do that. But there are several factors, including: 1. Women tend to negotiate less aggressively 2. Women who negotiate aggressively tend to be perceived worse than men doing the exact same thing 3. Implicit bias affects the amount of money an employer sees fit to offer in the first place As to what to do, here some ideas: * Massachusetts' law barring employers from asking about previous salaries as part of negotiations seems like a good idea * More transparency about salaries would help * Maybe a "Costco auto club" model, where the price is set up-front with no haggling, would be a good idea. Reddit tried to do this but it was kind of tied up with all the other issues they had. Not 100% sure on this one.
  - RHSeeger 10y ago
    > Maybe a "Costco auto club" model, where the price is set up-front with no haggling, would be a good idea. Reddit tried to do this but it was kind of tied up with all the other issues they had. Not 100% sure on this one. The negative to that is (unless every company plays by those same rules) you're limiting yourself in who you can hire. The more expensive (and, presumably, more skilled) developers will go work somewhere that will pay them more (based on that skill), while the cheapest (and, presumably, lowest skilled) developers will come work for you because they know you'll pay them more than others will. There are benefits to being able to pay people what you feel they are worth to your company. Is it worth losing those benefits.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      I don't know. Maybe you just offer competitive salaries for everyone and everyone wants to work for you. Maybe your superstars actually get a different title and responsibilities and you're just more upfront about how you decide. I think there are plenty of companies out there with a pretty narrow band for any given position and this way of doing things eliminates the anxiety about whether you negotiated well or not. Also, I think most companies can't really hope to attract the world's very best programmers anyway. If everyone says they're hiring the best they can't all be right.
      - mantas 10y ago
        There will always be some companies paying more and some paying less. People who are not as good at getting a better salary in current system, would probably fail to get into better paying companies then. And we're back at square 1.
        emodendroket 10y ago
        How do you figure? If they're able to pass whatever company's interview and negotiation is no longer a factor it seems more likely that salaries will become more equitable. I'd guess the correlation between negotiating skill and technical skill is small at best.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 10y ago
  If only men predominantly "haggle well", is it possible that the ideal wage negotiation is modeled around an alpha male? It feels like rewarding productivity and giving equality in wage could be easily tied together, and benefit nearly everyone.
  - mantas 10y ago
    And how would we measure programmers' productivity? LoCs?
- shostack 10y ago
  Claudia Goldin, Harvard economics professor, has some really interesting info on this I heard on a Freakonomics podcast a while back [1]. A big takeaway for me was that the data showed men and women being largely equal in pay for the earlier parts of their careers when you control for various things. When families start entering the equation, women often prioritize different things in their job, or consider changing jobs that offer these things. One of the big new priorities is...surprise...flexibility. When you have a family, flexibility because worth its weight in gold. If women are still predominantly the primary caretaker at home, it makes sense that they would need to optimize for whatever gives them the best balance there. However the dark side of this, as discussed int he podcast, is that it can often lead to things like bosses not giving out choice assignments with lots of travel for example, because they don't think the employee would want that or be able to manage it. That sort of thing compounds over time and leads to slower progression, less leverage when asking for raises, etc. The episode was a real eye opener for me because it brought some interesting data to the table. [1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...

> payment inequality Perceived or real? I'm yet to hear about a company that has policy to pay women less. Most have personally-discussed salaries though. If some ladies are paid less, they probably don't haggle as well. What should we do? Deny custom salaries and personal raises?

webvictim 10y ago
There are no companies which have such a policy, because it's illegal.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  Speeding is also illegal. True, there are no companies that speed, but I think that's just because they can't drive.
emodendroket 10y ago
Yeah, no kidding, nobody has a policy to do that. But there are several factors, including: 1. Women tend to negotiate less aggressively 2. Women who negotiate aggressively tend to be perceived worse than men doing the exact same thing 3. Implicit bias affects the amount of money an employer sees fit to offer in the first place As to what to do, here some ideas: * Massachusetts' law barring employers from asking about previous salaries as part of negotiations seems like a good idea * More transparency about salaries would help * Maybe a "Costco auto club" model, where the price is set up-front with no haggling, would be a good idea. Reddit tried to do this but it was kind of tied up with all the other issues they had. Not 100% sure on this one.
- RHSeeger 10y ago
  > Maybe a "Costco auto club" model, where the price is set up-front with no haggling, would be a good idea. Reddit tried to do this but it was kind of tied up with all the other issues they had. Not 100% sure on this one. The negative to that is (unless every company plays by those same rules) you're limiting yourself in who you can hire. The more expensive (and, presumably, more skilled) developers will go work somewhere that will pay them more (based on that skill), while the cheapest (and, presumably, lowest skilled) developers will come work for you because they know you'll pay them more than others will. There are benefits to being able to pay people what you feel they are worth to your company. Is it worth losing those benefits.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    I don't know. Maybe you just offer competitive salaries for everyone and everyone wants to work for you. Maybe your superstars actually get a different title and responsibilities and you're just more upfront about how you decide. I think there are plenty of companies out there with a pretty narrow band for any given position and this way of doing things eliminates the anxiety about whether you negotiated well or not. Also, I think most companies can't really hope to attract the world's very best programmers anyway. If everyone says they're hiring the best they can't all be right.
    - mantas 10y ago
      There will always be some companies paying more and some paying less. People who are not as good at getting a better salary in current system, would probably fail to get into better paying companies then. And we're back at square 1.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        How do you figure? If they're able to pass whatever company's interview and negotiation is no longer a factor it seems more likely that salaries will become more equitable. I'd guess the correlation between negotiating skill and technical skill is small at best.
d3ad1ysp0rk 10y ago
If only men predominantly "haggle well", is it possible that the ideal wage negotiation is modeled around an alpha male? It feels like rewarding productivity and giving equality in wage could be easily tied together, and benefit nearly everyone.
- mantas 10y ago
  And how would we measure programmers' productivity? LoCs?
shostack 10y ago
Claudia Goldin, Harvard economics professor, has some really interesting info on this I heard on a Freakonomics podcast a while back [1]. A big takeaway for me was that the data showed men and women being largely equal in pay for the earlier parts of their careers when you control for various things. When families start entering the equation, women often prioritize different things in their job, or consider changing jobs that offer these things. One of the big new priorities is...surprise...flexibility. When you have a family, flexibility because worth its weight in gold. If women are still predominantly the primary caretaker at home, it makes sense that they would need to optimize for whatever gives them the best balance there. However the dark side of this, as discussed int he podcast, is that it can often lead to things like bosses not giving out choice assignments with lots of travel for example, because they don't think the employee would want that or be able to manage it. That sort of thing compounds over time and leads to slower progression, less leverage when asking for raises, etc. The episode was a real eye opener for me because it brought some interesting data to the table. [1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...