6 ms·

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of th

by m52go 10y ago

I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details like amount of experience and job function? I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree. Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor earning double her salary because he's a man. Turns out he's a veteran executive with 20 years of C-level experience. Mayer didn't have that. It may be an extreme example, but it's a good reminder to be cautious about pay gap assertions.

tyingq 10y ago
It's an odd situation. The government isn't giving out any numbers, but they are saying things like: "The government’s analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry." Pretty strong language when you aren't yet willing to back it up. Google's replies are equally strong in the other direction: "Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap." Saying there's no gender pay gap at all is pretty bold as well.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  The government can't give out numbers when Google is denying them access to the records. I've written the details in another comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113
  - tyingq 10y ago
    If they have no numbers, how did they reach the conclusion they state above?
    - denzil_correa 10y ago
      DoL has NOT reached any conclusion. DoL has a suspicion based on 2015 snapshot of salaries. They want to understand why there's a disparity. It may or may not be due to a gender wage gap but for that conclusion to be reached you need to have access to data they have requested from Google.
      - tyingq 10y ago
        Right, but the DOL is absolutely stating things that sound like conclusions, not suspicions: "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce" That statement obviously depends on numbers they already have, and are not sharing.
        denzil_correa 10y ago
        No, they DoL is not stating anything like conclusions. Read through the court documents again. > Wipper said the department found pay disparities in a 2015 snapshot of salaries and said officials needed earlier compensation data to evaluate the root of the problem and needed to be able to confidentially interview employees. They found pay disparities in a 2015 snapshot and now want to investigate further.
        tyingq 10y ago
        >No, they DoL is not stating anything like conclusions. Read through the court documents again I included the direct quote from the DoL that I was referring to when I said it sounded like a conclusion.
    - dleslie 10y ago
      Google employees pay taxes.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tajen 10y ago
> Does it include details like amount of experience and job function The DoL hasn't released any data to back up their claim. Up to what is published for the moment, it's a blanket, overly broad, unsustained accusation by the DoL which makes the IT market look bad. I'm appalled that no journalist (whether the WSJ or the others who relayed the info) do their work of putting the claims in perspective, and instead, just quote the nationwide non-normalized averages.
inopinatus 10y ago
What you heard is an apology for sexism. Almost all structural/systematic discrimination can be controlled out of your comparison if you normalize it for the factors of the, er, structural/systematic discrimination.
- tomerico 10y ago
  But if you are ok with pay differences based on expert and job function, that's fine.
  - inopinatus 10y ago
    Nope. The pay differences are often themselves used as a reinforcement of sexism, rather than as a recognition of net contribution. It's one of the mechanisms of systematic discrimination. NB: not commenting on whether this an issue at Google specifically.
    - ball_of_lint 10y ago
      How can you show that it's specifically discrimination on gender rather than ability or a function of both?
      - inopinatus 10y ago
        By having managers as colleagues in any large business, and paying attention to what they do.
- jjoonathan 10y ago
  Leaving the workforce is generally believed to negatively impact people of every gender's ability to contribute productively. If you want to claim that women or types of absences specific to women are special, the burden of proof is on you. EDIT: I see you've removed the claim I was addressing in an edit. Wish I'd quoted it.
  - 10y ago
snarf21 10y ago
I can't find the source but I read something recently that said that after controlling for position and experience the pay gap is around 7%. Off the cuff, I find that to match my intuition. If you could hire women engineers for 80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a deal and the women would get a big pay bump. This is not happening. There is a pay gap and we should fix that. It is also very likely to vary widely in different industries. I also wonder if it all really caused by closed minded hirers who pay women less because they are going to be "too emotional" or other such nonsense.
- Marazan 10y ago
  Of course that is the reason. People aren't underpaying women because they think they can get away with it to save money, they under pay because they think the women is worth less than an equivalent male.
  - emsy 10y ago
    If you have to hire women overproportionally to achieve a certain quota this seems like a logical and even justifiable conclusion.
- m52go 10y ago
  > If you could hire women engineers for 80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a deal and the women would get a big pay bump. This is not happening. Of course it's not happening, because according to your own response, people of both genders who have less experience get paid less. People get paid in accordance with their experience. There is no arbitrage opportunity.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    People get paid in accordance with their cultural presentation, their self-confidence, their political skills, and their ability to display tempered aggression when valuing themselves and seeking pay rises. There's some correlation with experience, but experience is often not the primary determinant of pay.
hannob 10y ago
> I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. The question you may ask here however is: Does it matter? I mean I agree that it matters from "getting the facts straight", but maybe not necessarily from the conclusions. If the pay gap is due to less experience, less education etc., then you're seeing effects of earlier discrimination in society. Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the society to compensate for that?
- Caprinicus 10y ago
  What if men and women naturally have different priorities as far as what jobs they want to take and how much they want to work?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    That's blasphemy. You are only allowed to think that physiology and millions of years of different evolutionary developments are totally irrelevant, and that this is the year zero: all divergent cultural and historical choices between the sexes were only and solely the result of oppression and discrimination, and sexes only differ in having different reproductive organs.
  - Afton 10y ago
    What if that same excuse has been used as far back as you choose to look for all sorts of discrimination? It's not that it can't possibly be right, but it's a hypothesis to be forced to, not to grab and promote above all others. And we just haven't been forced to it yet.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > If the pay gap is due to less experience, less education etc., then you're seeing effects of earlier discrimination in society. No, it can also be due to interests/innate biological differences. Women firefighters/professional athletes would be paid less than males, all other things considered, because women generally have less strength and athletic ability than men do.

by m52go 10y ago

tyingq 10y ago

It's an odd situation. The government isn't giving out any numbers, but they are saying things like: "The government’s analysis at this point indicates that discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even in this industry." Pretty strong language when you aren't yet willing to back it up. Google's replies are equally strong in the other direction: "Every year, we do a comprehensive and robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap." Saying there's no gender pay gap at all is pretty bold as well.

denzil_correa 10y ago
The government can't give out numbers when Google is denying them access to the records. I've written the details in another comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113
- tyingq 10y ago
  If they have no numbers, how did they reach the conclusion they state above?
  - denzil_correa 10y ago
    DoL has NOT reached any conclusion. DoL has a suspicion based on 2015 snapshot of salaries. They want to understand why there's a disparity. It may or may not be due to a gender wage gap but for that conclusion to be reached you need to have access to data they have requested from Google.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      Right, but the DOL is absolutely stating things that sound like conclusions, not suspicions: "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce" That statement obviously depends on numbers they already have, and are not sharing.
      - denzil_correa 10y ago
        No, they DoL is not stating anything like conclusions. Read through the court documents again. > Wipper said the department found pay disparities in a 2015 snapshot of salaries and said officials needed earlier compensation data to evaluate the root of the problem and needed to be able to confidentially interview employees. They found pay disparities in a 2015 snapshot and now want to investigate further.
        tyingq 10y ago
        >No, they DoL is not stating anything like conclusions. Read through the court documents again I included the direct quote from the DoL that I was referring to when I said it sounded like a conclusion.
  - dleslie 10y ago
    Google employees pay taxes.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tajen 10y ago

> Does it include details like amount of experience and job function The DoL hasn't released any data to back up their claim. Up to what is published for the moment, it's a blanket, overly broad, unsustained accusation by the DoL which makes the IT market look bad. I'm appalled that no journalist (whether the WSJ or the others who relayed the info) do their work of putting the claims in perspective, and instead, just quote the nationwide non-normalized averages.

inopinatus 10y ago

What you heard is an apology for sexism. Almost all structural/systematic discrimination can be controlled out of your comparison if you normalize it for the factors of the, er, structural/systematic discrimination.

tomerico 10y ago
But if you are ok with pay differences based on expert and job function, that's fine.
- inopinatus 10y ago
  Nope. The pay differences are often themselves used as a reinforcement of sexism, rather than as a recognition of net contribution. It's one of the mechanisms of systematic discrimination. NB: not commenting on whether this an issue at Google specifically.
  - ball_of_lint 10y ago
    How can you show that it's specifically discrimination on gender rather than ability or a function of both?
    - inopinatus 10y ago
      By having managers as colleagues in any large business, and paying attention to what they do.
jjoonathan 10y ago
Leaving the workforce is generally believed to negatively impact people of every gender's ability to contribute productively. If you want to claim that women or types of absences specific to women are special, the burden of proof is on you. EDIT: I see you've removed the claim I was addressing in an edit. Wish I'd quoted it.
- 10y ago

snarf21 10y ago

I can't find the source but I read something recently that said that after controlling for position and experience the pay gap is around 7%. Off the cuff, I find that to match my intuition. If you could hire women engineers for 80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a deal and the women would get a big pay bump. This is not happening. There is a pay gap and we should fix that. It is also very likely to vary widely in different industries. I also wonder if it all really caused by closed minded hirers who pay women less because they are going to be "too emotional" or other such nonsense.

Marazan 10y ago
Of course that is the reason. People aren't underpaying women because they think they can get away with it to save money, they under pay because they think the women is worth less than an equivalent male.
- emsy 10y ago
  If you have to hire women overproportionally to achieve a certain quota this seems like a logical and even justifiable conclusion.
m52go 10y ago
> If you could hire women engineers for 80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a deal and the women would get a big pay bump. This is not happening. Of course it's not happening, because according to your own response, people of both genders who have less experience get paid less. People get paid in accordance with their experience. There is no arbitrage opportunity.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  People get paid in accordance with their cultural presentation, their self-confidence, their political skills, and their ability to display tempered aggression when valuing themselves and seeking pay rises. There's some correlation with experience, but experience is often not the primary determinant of pay.

hannob 10y ago

> I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national level) goes away after controlling for those variables. The question you may ask here however is: Does it matter? I mean I agree that it matters from "getting the facts straight", but maybe not necessarily from the conclusions. If the pay gap is due to less experience, less education etc., then you're seeing effects of earlier discrimination in society. Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the society to compensate for that?

Caprinicus 10y ago
What if men and women naturally have different priorities as far as what jobs they want to take and how much they want to work?
- coldtea 10y ago
  That's blasphemy. You are only allowed to think that physiology and millions of years of different evolutionary developments are totally irrelevant, and that this is the year zero: all divergent cultural and historical choices between the sexes were only and solely the result of oppression and discrimination, and sexes only differ in having different reproductive organs.
- Afton 10y ago
  What if that same excuse has been used as far back as you choose to look for all sorts of discrimination? It's not that it can't possibly be right, but it's a hypothesis to be forced to, not to grab and promote above all others. And we just haven't been forced to it yet.
jimmywanger 10y ago
> If the pay gap is due to less experience, less education etc., then you're seeing effects of earlier discrimination in society. No, it can also be due to interests/innate biological differences. Women firefighters/professional athletes would be paid less than males, all other things considered, because women generally have less strength and athletic ability than men do.