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Lol I don't mean to sound mean but this is not how the world works
by lostboys67 9y ago
Lol I don't mean to sound mean but this is not how the world works
- thehardsphere 9y agoActually, it is how the world works. If there was really a gender pay gap for women who are doing the exact same work as men with the exact same experience as men, then it would be trivial for employers to reduce their costs by only hiring women. Yet, nobody ever does this.
- EdSharkey 9y agoThis thread suddenly became gold. Don't you dare die on me, thread!
- cage433 9y agothe gender pay gap was just another myth created by the Chinese....
- cmahler7 9y agoSingle, childless women make 8% more than single, childless men across the country, and as much as 20% more in some cities. This only changes when they have children or when they work fewer hours. But don't let facts stop you from repeating the same tired lies that have been debunked for years http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/09/genevieve-wood/what-pay-gap-young-women-out-earn-men-cities-gop-p/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/09/... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EK6Y1X_xa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EK6Y1X_xa4
- lostboys67 9y agowe are talking like for like jobs and id prefer a less biased source the ONS for example) than right wing thing tanks
- qznc 9y agoMore: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/114055529676/my-verdict-on-gender-bias-in-the-workplace http://blog.dilbert.com/post/114055529676/my-verdict-on-gend... It contains links to many more sources at the end.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoPlease keep your tone civil. It's one of the factors that keeps HN discussions worthwhile.
- thehardsphere 9y agoI'm glad I made your day :D
- EdSharkey 9y agoYeah, I was ready to pop some popcorn. Life is so good when rational arguments can hit a higher pitch than the virtue signals. ;)
- skj 9y agoIt is true that in a purely rational system, there would be no pay gap (controlling for ability and impact). But guess what...
- thehardsphere 9y agoThere's no pay gap?
- skj 9y agoYour conclusion is, then, that all people are rational?
- thehardsphere 9y agoNo. Rationality has very little to do with it. How rational the participants are doesn't itself change the fact that there is a competitive labor market and that salary offers thus must be competitive. If women choose to forgo higher salaries in favor of something else, that's a different issue and it doesn't immediately mean that they are being "irrational", it just means they favor different things than men do.
- skj 9y agoThe rationality of the players is central to any argument you make in the line of "there is a competitive labor market and that salary offers thus must be competitive". If the hiring managers (of any gender) have an irrational bias towards thinking that women are not as effective as their male counterparts, this will affect the respective pay scales even within a competitive market. Note that I'm not providing evidence or making a claim about the gender pay gap. I'm just saying that the claims you've made have many possible consistent explanations, including irrational bias against women.
- PixelB 9y agoCorporations are rational. They care about one thing, dollars. If you are making them money, they will keep you no matter what. If you are not making them money, they will get rid of you. Pretty rational I think.
- adrianN 9y agoThis is a nice argument that I actually believe myself, but you could counter it by saying that, due to sexism, even when women and men do exactly the same work, the males' result are valued more. Hiring managers don't have to be perfectly rational, they could be (unconsciously) sexist.
- thehardsphere 9y agoYou could counter with that, but you'd be redefining what we're talking about away from whether or not similar men and women are paid the same to something far more nebulous and difficult to measure. And rationality of any one particular hiring manager isn't going to make a big difference; they still need to compete with every other hiring manager in the labor market and must offer something competitive accordingly.
- s73ver 9y agoNo, they'd be redefining it to something more analogous to the real world.
- thehardsphere 9y agoWe were discussing salary differences between men and women who do the same work and have made the same choices. Salaries exist in "the real world," so you're going to have to try harder to change the topic to whatever it is you want to talk about instead.
- lostboys67 9y agoNo it isn't I know one large uk tech company that is Terified of its gender pay gap becoming public. Like wise the BBC being forced to disclose pay rates for talent some Male presenters have taken pay cuts btw
- thehardsphere 9y agoIndividual companies having a gender pay gap doesn't mean the market has a gender pay gap. And if you work at one of those companies and are told that you can't be given a raise because of the internal, secret gender pay gap, you should quit that company and find a new job. I mean, even if it's true that particular company is paying its women worse than its men, and even if legislation means they can't quickly fix it (I don't know how onerous this legislation is in the U.K.), the proper response on the part of any employee who is given these excuses ought to be "Look, that sounds like you have a difficult problem, but that isn't my problem. My problem is that my salary is $X when it should be $X+Y." Because at the end of the day their excuses aren't going to change the fact that they can either fix your problem or not, and if they don't fix your problem somebody else in the labor market can.
- lostboys67 9y agoEven when this company has > 100,000 emploees and has individual divisions with more engineers than Google
- thehardsphere 9y agoWhat does the company's size have to do with whether or not you are being paid the amount of money you want?
- lostboys67 9y agoBecause they set industry standards for pay which is why the pay suppression cartel was so important
- 9y ago
- Marazan 9y agoYou have that arse backwards - women aren't paid less because companies think they can get away with it. Women are paid less because they are valued less for doing the same job. Companies think the are less valuable. As a result they do not seek to hire people they value less.
- EdSharkey 9y agoWait, you just said, "women are paid less because they are valued less". Sounds logical. But the grandparent's point is a sticky one: "it would be trivial for employers to reduce their costs by only hiring women." And yet ... no employer ever does this. They hire men and women. Also logical. Either you're not telling me everything you know, or you're wrong. Without radical argument surgery, to make what you said square with GP, we have to consider changing the parameters in some pretty distasteful ways: * It's actually the women themselves who value their time less, and let themselves get taken advantage of in salary negotiations. * Men are more skilled than women for some jobs and those skills are in short supply. They get hired alongside women, but command higher salaries. I tend to think there is no gender pay gap, but only if we adjust for people's choices to take breaks from their careers in order to raise families, pursue hobbies, mental health, etc.
- Marazan 9y agoThe grandparent point is based on a false premise.
- EdSharkey 9y agoWhich part was false, and does the false part invalidate the whole? I think the point being made was, if women are paid less, and thus cheaper to employ, they'd dominate new hires - presumably because salary is the largest cost for most businesses. So, as as an employer you'd want to minimize salaries. Men are still getting hired, and that's the logical fly in the ointment that one needs to overcome - unless we allow for other distasteful variables to float, as I pointed out above. Or, we can consider there is no pay gap.
- jakobegger 9y agoYour argument hinges on the assumption that (a) employers can easily determine the relative "value" of an employee and (b) that employers then make rational decisions based on that data. I don't think either is likely.
- thehardsphere 9y agoReally? Do you think people are wildly overpaid by their employers?