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The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job diffe

by johnfn 9y ago

The whole point is that society systematically undervaluing women-dominated professions is sexism. It makes sense that the pay gap disappears when the job differences go away, because the job differences are the pay gap. A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. It embarrasses me to see this on HN.

darawk 9y ago
> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding. EDIT: In your edit you added the example of teaching. And that is, fairish. I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism, it's a consequence of the structure of our education system. They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy.
- Others 9y ago
  The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.
  - darawk 9y ago
    Now that is an explanation I can get behind. I think that there is a degree to which society socializes women to prefer lower paid jobs. That I think is absolutely legitimate. But the idea that sexism causes us to value those jobs less is, I think, absurd.
    - haikuginger 9y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...
      - hackinthebochs 9y ago
        That's such a silly article. There are so many confounding factors as to make any attempt at determining causation specious. Women's employment rate grew massively over that time period. This means that jobs requiring no specialized skills would receive an influx of job seekers. If we assume the employment rate of men stayed the same over that period, we would expect all jobs that require no specialized skills or physical demands would reduce in wages as the demand for those jobs increased. As far as computer programming goes, it literally was a clerical job early on. Wages rose as the job started requiring more specialized skills (which apparently women couldn't or didn't want to get).
        Noos 9y ago
        i think one forgotten issue is the part-time economy. I know in retail just as the work shifted to part time on demand hours, women's participation increased because it's easier for women to work part time than men.
      - darawk 9y ago
        In other news, economists discover that supply and demand balance to create price! When the supply of a thing goes up but the demand doesn't, the price goes down.
  - rarec 9y ago
    >The problem is gender roles. Men are taught by society to think that, as men, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like software development, tend to be higher paid than the careers women are encouraged to go into. Kinda works both ways as an argument. If they were so concerned about pay, they can try and negotiate for more. Men are taught/encouraged to do this more from a young age. If you want to be paid more, you gotta haggle, you can't just accept the price on the sticker.
  - klipt 9y ago
    Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers based on pay. Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative. Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are less fulfilled and satisfied by their jobs.
    - rarec 9y ago
      Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth. Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of themselves. There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.
      - twobyfour 9y ago
        Too many women are raised to believe not that they have value in and of themselves but that their value is in their reproductive potential.
        AjithAntony 9y ago
        I'd say both men and women at some level value themselves in their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women feel value by being attractive to men. And Men feel value by being attractive to women. Men are attracted to women who display youth and beauty as a proxy for reproductive value, and women are attracted to wealth and status as a proxy for support.
        twobyfour 9y ago
        Sure, but women are taught (mostly subconsciously but in some ways explicitly) that their primary value as human beings is in physical attractiveness when young, in their fertility in their 20s, and in their ability to nurture when older. We teach men that their value is in their accomplishments, which is a) more empowering; b) more under their control; and c) more conducive to independence and pursuit of self-realization (in career or in other aspects of life), positions of power, and yes, powerful and high-paid careers.
  - merb 9y ago
    actually that even starts in the early life. with barbie or special lego's just for women. p.s.: my niche loves my old lego's more than the girlish ones.
  - michaelbuddy 9y ago
    "taught by society" feel free to source that in a way that can be proven. The assertion is just pseudo intellectual excuse making. Society is NOT telling women to NOT be sanitation workers. Society is not telling women not to work on offshore oil rigs. Society is not telling women not to be surgeons but to in fact be veterinarians. Society and "gender role" excuses don't hold up to reality. Time to accept that the women you know, or imagine you know make their choices, largely based on their own interests. You're welcome to try to convince women to become sanitation workers rather than paralegal interns in climate controlled offices. Good luck on that.
    - davidcbc 9y ago
      I don't see how you can possibly claim that society doesn't discourage women from pursuing "manly" careers. By the same token men are discouraged from pursuing "feminine" careers. If a man says they are going to work on an offshore oil rig they are much less likely to get societal push back than a woman because it is seen as a normal thing for a man to do but not a woman. If a woman is an elementary school teacher it is considered completely normal, whereas men are often looked down upon for doing so. The same happens with male nurses. How can you read all the stories about sexual harassment in our industry and not think women are being discouraged from pursuing careers in tech?
      - MartinCron 9y ago
        It's not just our industry, ever hear the horror stories of women breaking into other male dominated fields like policing? The idea that there aren't multiple forces, often brutal ones, nudging men and women into particular fields is just preposterous.
      - michaelbuddy 9y ago
        You're just saying words, you've got no examples of where rubber meets the road. Just that "men are looked down upon for being elementary school teachers" What? Where? And female oil rig workers get "societal pushback" Again just words. Where? How? You've got nothing here so far. I mean if you want to talk about cultural influence there's way more news articles celebrating women doing various things, celebrating women entrepreneurs, women soldiers, women and minority events and special recognition or conferences. Read all the stories about sexual harassment? Anecdotally I've seen just as much sexual language coming from women in IT as men in terms of workers. Project mgrs, network admins, probably a few more. And those instances were miniscule and didn't make up anywhere near a day to day problem for people. I have seen instances where a guy who was being a dick treated women poorly. He got a talking to and cut that out. I've seen women take their day out on men and women and never got any kind of talking to. It's really funny you're pointing to some sort of dysfunction and not demonstrating or sourcing anything but "all those stories"
  - twa19999 9y ago
    It is not taught by society, it is genetics. In such traditional, Catholic society as Poland women often choose the same careers as men: IT specialists, managers, business owners. In a progressive such as Norway they much more often choose careers such as nurse or teacher. The reason behind this is economics: in Norway teacher or nurse salary guarantees pretty decent standard of living. In Poland these are very low pay jobs. So, women when given a choice will choose traditional women professions because that's their nature. In fact I think women are more hurt by the opposite: the feminist movement that teaches them that they should want the same things men want. And the one thing that is virtually guaranteed to make women happy, that is having a child is discouraged as being "relict of patriarchal oppression" or something like that.
  - prostoalex 9y ago
    In some countries. China, India, Romania, Ukraine and a few others seem to have no shortage of women going into STEM.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Women seek men with resources to reproduce with. Men tend to only care about youth/fertility. It's not like men can start reproducing with women who are no longer fertile, so they can't possibly lower the bar any further. Since women don't have social pressure to gather resources in order to reproduce, men are going to dominate in higher paying professions. This is similar to the same argument Christopher Hitchens famously made in his Vanity Fair article about why women aren't funny. It's not that women can't be funny, obviously many are. It's that they don't need to be funny to get laid. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 If you want to resolve this problem you need to either ask women to lower the bar and not seek men with resources or ask men to raise the bar and demand that women not only be youthful/fertile, but also have resources. Good luck.
  - Noos 9y ago
    or it could be these careers speak more to women's aspirations than others. If an important goal for a woman is to have a family and children, working at higher paid jobs that require tremendous hours and travel are not going to be attractive. If the same is for men, likewise...the family man who turns down traveling or relocating, and can't work massive overtime will see his prospects decline too. A lot of the problem with gender roles is many feminists have internalized male actions as the norm and female actions as inferior...so they see women as underpaid over as having the flexibility to raise a family
- johnfn 9y ago
  > As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.
  - darawk 9y ago
    That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.
    - mrkurt 9y ago
      It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism. Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.
      - darawk 9y ago
        I disagree. Women have the same opportunity to negotiate that men do. The fact that they choose to negotiate less is on them.
        mrkurt 9y ago
        Do you agree that negotiation skills don't matter for most jobs? And do you agree that people should be compensated based on the value they bring to a job? Because sexism or no, I think it's a tremendous problem when people get ahead for completely tangential reasons to their job performance and skills.
        hnnsj 9y ago
        How is it sexism is sex is not a factor?
- burkaman 9y ago
  What do you think causes such extreme gender disparities in positions like CEO, or board of directors?
  - darawk 9y ago
    I don't know. There are many possible explanations. One is sexism. Another is that women are less likely to negotiate. Another is that maybe women tend to be CEOs of companies that are less valuable, or that rely less on the expertise of their CEO.
    - cannonedhamster 9y ago
      Women are less likely to negotiate because of the societal views of women who are shrewd negotiators. The societal pressure on women to be passive is immense. Just look at women in politics for numerous examples. That's what's sexist about it. There are different expectations of people based solely on gender, and that further divides into race with black women at the bottom of that pool. You need only listen to the experiences of women founders in Silicon Valley to realize your comment really doesn't match up with what really happens. Women, especially in the tech sector, are treated like personal sex objects of some VCs. There is not a single situation you listed above that cannot be attributed to similarity bias or cultural bias against, both completely unintentional.
    - burkaman 9y ago
      Ok, so why are they less likely to negotiate, why are they more likely to ascend at less valuable companies, etc. The whole point of talking about the wage gap is figuring out why it exists. And inevitably, there are only two possible ends to this investigation. Either there are inherent biological differences that cause women to be less effective and valuable in our economy, or some societal manifestation of sexism is causing these differences. As far as I can tell there is no other possible answer.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Yep, that's correct. And it's almost certainly a mixture of the two. I'm not saying there isn't sexism involved, i'm just saying that it's more likely to be on the side of socializing young girls into choosing less remunerative professions.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  > As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. I challenge you to question if either of these assumptions hold in all cases or just in an idealized world where everyone is a "rational consumer."
  - darawk 9y ago
    No, certainly it doesn't happen in all cases. But the idea that there is a systematic bias against female-dominated professions is just silly.
- kazinator 9y ago
  Sexism is present in those forces which guide girls and women toward those under-valued positions. > I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism Sure; however a statement like "teaching is work befitting a woman" would be sexism.
  - darawk 9y ago
    Absolutely agree. It is sexist to socialize girls into specific professions. It is sexist to say "x is work befitting a woman". But women-dominated professions being paid less is not sexist.
- JimboOmega 9y ago
  Well, imagine a scenario where women are initially not in the labor force. But they want to work, same as anyone Then, one day, society changes. "You can work, but you can only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary". You don't think there'd be a supply glut driving down wages in those areas? Suppressing them over a long period as women gradually enter the labor force there? And by the same token, that society that says you can't be an engineer or a CEO because you are a woman - that severely punishes those women who do seek those jobs - you don't think women would respond to that? That even if they could produce more economic value, the societal pressure can override the capitalist tendencies of organizations and individuals to maximize wealth?
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?
    - johnchristopher 9y ago
      Why the emphase on `forced` and `today` ?
      - lr4444lr 9y ago
        Because it would make sense 50 or more years ago, when women were openly shut out from other professions. That's not to say the after-effects of those outmoded cultural traditions aren't having an impact, but to claim that this accounts entirely or even majorly for the professional disparity in female representation demands evidence.
    - UncleMeat 9y ago
      Certainly that was the case in the past, and cultural inertia is real. This allows inequities and biases to persist over time. So although women are not forced to choose teaching, for example, there are more teaching role models who are women and culture nudges women towards that career. This causes the persistent inequity in career pay that was caused in part by the original influx of women into the field when explicit sexism was rampant.
- lloydde 9y ago
  "People are paid according to the value they produce" grossly simplifies compensation. If we must generalize compensation: people are paid the lowest amount they will accept. Supply and demand and value are central to the equation, but large variability in compensation among near identical profiles in the US and Canadian software sectors is an indicator that the individual isn't good at knowing their value.
- usefulcat 9y ago
  "They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy." That's a theory. The relevant question is, what evidence exists to support or refute that theory?
  - darawk 9y ago
    The fact that male teachers are equally underpaid, pretty clearly.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Pay and prestige of educators has diminished as it has become more female dominated. This is a pattern seen across many industries when they shift from male dominated to female dominated. This suggests that there is a relationship between gender distributions in a job and its prestige and value given by society. Not all jobs have direct "money in, money out" relations that you can use to judge value. This opens the door for all sorts of cultural bias that affects how people decide how much a particular job is "worth".
  - ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
    Women have been the majority of teachers in the US for over a hundred years
  - ashark 9y ago
    Has prestige also dropped for doctors and lawyers? They're not professions dominated by women AFAIK, but women've become quite well represented in them since the ~mid 80s, so one might expect to see this effect there. I know job prospects aren't as hot for lawyers as they once were[1], but it's still one of very few professions that I'd expect to reliably make someone's parents' eyebrows go up and an "oh!" issue from their mouth on hearing their kid's dating one, ya know? So the prestige is still there, unless I've missed something. And doctors are doctors, so certainly in that category, too. I really doubt "software developer" automatically gains one anywhere near as much social capital, in general company and without further favorable details/context. [1] as you correctly wrote, "Not all jobs have direct 'money in, money out' relations that you can use to judge value."
- ordu 9y ago
  > As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all. > To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding. Conception of economics is a theory. Reality is something different, theory is just simplified description of reality. Theory is much more formal, more simple and more understandable. Theory exists only in human mind as some entity of informational nature, while reality... well, reality is just a reality. Theory offers us laws that works in most cases. Or more precise, that laws works while axioms postulated by theory are fulfilled. But reality just works, it does not follow our laws and rules, it just works somehow. No absolute truth exists. Every one axiom sometimes is not true. In a case when axioms are not true, theory becomes unreliable. If you think to rely on laws of some theory, then first you should check whether all relevant axioms are fullfilled in your case. People use word "economics" and mean either theory or reality depending on context. This leads to confusion and inability to see the difference. Train youself to separate theory and reality on every occasion, try every time to use different words for theory and reality and you'll become immune to such mistakes. As I undestand such a theory as economics, "people value things according to what value they obtain from them" itself is axiom. Here you see some case where axiom is false: its just a matter of fact. So reality and theory are different here substantially. You should choose some other theory to deal with such situation.
  - darawk 9y ago
    > Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all. I agree in part. I agree wholeheartedly that the rational actor model is (at best) incomplete. We are not rational beings making perfect value judgments moment to moment. I further admit it is possible that, in individual interactions, the gender of the employee/agent we are interacting with may be a factor in price considerations. However, ultimately prices are set by supply and demand. What the OP is positing, is that demand is suppressed by sexism. What would this mean? Some female-dominated professions are: Nursing, teaching, and social work [1]. Now think about what would have to be true in order for the OP's point to be correct. People would have to systematically demand less nursing, teaching, and social work in order to achieve the result they were implying. Do you think that is plausible? When thinking about intra-profession discrimination, I would have no problem attributing that to sexism. That is, if you said to me that female teachers are systematically paid less than their male counterparts, i'd be all for labelling that sexism. But that's not what's being posited here. What's being posited is that because certain professions are dominated by women, people consume them less. People want less of them. But what is a profession's role in the world if not to generate its own demand? If people aren't demanding your services, you find a new profession. In other words, if demand for the services women choose to provide is so elastic that it can be depressed by sexism, then maybe they ought to find better services to provide. Services that are important enough that the demand for them is non-negotiable, and can never be suppressed by sexist preferences. 1. http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by-women-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by...
mathperson 9y ago
Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. But it isn't really subject to market forces the way software engineering is. A better teacher doesn't bring in more revenue and profit for a public school. Most teachers work in public schools. I am not disagreeing with you in general (I am not taking a stand either way) but this is a pretty silly example.
- johnnyb9 9y ago
  So they are valuable, so long as you don't value them with money.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lr4444lr 9y ago
    They're not paid more because their unions negotiate a fixed salary schedule through collective bargaining, and most teachers support this state of affairs. It's hardly a pure value judgment on the part of "society".
  - nsxwolf 9y ago
    Male teachers face the same issue. But really, salary is only one component of what they are paid. Just about any teacher that survives to an old age will beat me earnings wise with their pension, which they don't have to fund. I have to fund my own 401K or IRA, as well as pay into the teacher's pension fund with my property taxes.
  - disc 9y ago
    Is the system setup to value them with money? Can a parent walk into a school and agree to higher property taxes if their kid is placed in a specific teacher's classroom?
kazinator 9y ago
I suspect many people understand the "pay gap" as being that women get paid less for doing the same work with the same qualifications as men. Whereas the socio-economic dynamic of women being driven by various forces, at play throughout their lives, into lower paying jobs (in which men are also paid less), which is what you seem to be writing about, is something other than "pay gap".
klipt 9y ago
Teachers make more per hour than doctors, when you factor in benefits like pension and not having huge medical school loans: http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/ http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
  Teachers work long hours after school. Also, I was under the impression the money in being a generic "doctor" was running your own practice.
- hypersoar 9y ago
  That graphic assumes that doctors work 59.6 hours per week, which sounds like a number pulled from somewhere, and that teachers work 40 hours per week, which sounds like they're assuming a "standard" work week. But that only makes sense if you assume teachers barely work more than the school day itself, which seems implausible. It also assumes that teachers work 38 weeks per year. That would mean a 3.5-month summer break, which doesn't really match with reality.
  - nilkn 9y ago
    My SO is a high school teacher and it's actually pretty close to reality for her. She has had the entire summer off and still has over two weeks left before she goes back to work. During the school year, she probably does average more than 40 hours per week, but the excess is flexible and often done at her convenience and at home. That's quite a bit better than a 3AM emergency call to the operating room. And it's never 20 hours of excess. She also got a signing bonus and all her undergraduate tuition debt paid off as part of the job offer. And she really does get a fully-funded pension.
    - vacri 9y ago
      > That's quite a bit better than a 3AM emergency call to the operating room. We need to quit with this idea that all doctors are either emergency physicians or emergency surgeons. Most doctors are not that. And does anyone really believe that if teachers worked just a few more hours per week, they'd all be driving maseratis?
cubecul 9y ago
I don't share your embarrassment. There's a significant chunk of the country that doesn't understand the issue - they think the claim is about blatantly discriminatory practices. In some cases, I'm not sure that even the people who do advocate for solutions to the pay gap truly understand what the core issue is. Both of this caused by the way all of this has been worded. Worth clarifying all of this as much as possible to work towards putting everyone on the same understanding of the situation.
- johnfn 9y ago
  Yes, the wage gap isn't literally about cigar-smoking men in dark rooms deciding to systematically pay women less. It's more like someone who claims not to see gender paying women less because men negotiated or "seemed more confident". I'm embarrassed because this kind of stuff can and will be used to continue the narrative of "women make just as much as men" which isn't true.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
dsacco 9y ago
In what way is teaching underpaid?
illuminati1911 9y ago
And job differences are individual decisions. We can finally stop the "women are being paid less/discriminated ...yadayada..." -horseshit. Teaching is done/funded by the society in most cases and paid with tax dollars. Some jobs being "underpaid" or paid too much are problems that come from the lack of real capitalism where everybody would be paid their actual market value and we could remove the whole word "underpaid" from the dictionary. It embarrasses me to see someone not realizing this.
- johnfn 9y ago
  > And job differences are individual decisions. What? So you became a (I assume) programmer due to yourself alone? You didn't have any help learning how to use a computer from your parents, you didn't have any encouragement of your peers to continue, you weren't influenced at all by society and how it favors certain behaviors, no good teachers helped you learn the requisite math or science or critical thinking? It was all entirely a decision made in a vacuum? Your viewpoint is far too reductionistic.
  - illuminati1911 9y ago
    I don't know why you care about anecdotes, but if you do: I became a software developer because I though computers were interesting. My friends called me a geek. My father tried to stop me because he wanted me to work in a construction industry LIKE THE REAL MEN DO. My mother wanted me to become a lawyer because it is a respectful profession unlike being a nerd. For about 10 years my parents continuously tried to prevent me from using computers and told me to "go outside and play" etc. So did I become a construction worker or a lawyer? Nope. Did I become a software engineer? Yes. How? Individual decision. I make my my own decision in life. Sometimes definitely influenced by others, but so what? If I get influenced by them it's my responsibility to handle it in the proper way and look for other opinions too. People pretend to be a weak and try to shift responsibility to other people/society deserve no pity.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Isn't capitalism about the use of capital to control and manage markets? If I will £5m on the lottery and then set up a company investing that money am I worth the 4% a year I should (probably would) make? The value of your teachers (or lack of value) will only become apparent over time - a long time. The value of your doctor may become absolute to you, several times over your life. God forbid that you or yours fall sick, but should your doctor be able to demand all of your worldly goods to heal you? What about farmers - should they gang together and refuse to supply food until starvation set in would that allow them to demand all of the cities wealth? If no then what is needed - is it a rule of law that enforces particular norms of behaviour?
cisanti 9y ago
Then what do you say to all the men who either die or lose their health doing difficult and dangerous jobs, often for peanuts? If you can't prove me men teachers are being paid more, your argument is invalid. Women choose very different careers and that's fine, but the choice is there.
- johnfn 9y ago
  > If you can't prove me men teachers are being paid more, your argument is invalid. Teaching as a profession is underpaid, and I don't think that teaching being dominated by women is a coincidence.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Teachers are paid way, way more than soldiers or firefighters or refuse collectors or miners or meatpackers...
    - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
      I don't think so, for all of those at least, e.g. http://www.careerprofiles.info/middle-school-teacher-salaries.html http://www.careerprofiles.info/middle-school-teacher-salarie... http://www.careerprofiles.info/fire-fighter-salaries.html http://www.careerprofiles.info/fire-fighter-salaries.html
  - hackinthebochs 9y ago
    Why do discussions like this always avoid any talk about market value? Teachers are paid relatively less because its not hard to become a teacher and there are a lot of people willing to do it.
elsurudo 9y ago
There are male teachers, too.
jxcole 9y ago
You summarize the exact point of the article perfectly: women are paid less not because they have the same job and are paid less, but because they are offered different jobs which pay less. To address sexism we should focus on making sure women have the same opportunities to do the same job that men do, rather than just trying to make sure everyone in a certain job category is paid the same. What about this is embarrassing? Do you fee that women don't deserve the same high paying jobs as men? It seems you are demonizing an article for saying the exact same thing that you are...
- mpweiher 9y ago
  > they are offered different jobs ?? How about they choose different jobs?
pithic 9y ago
Perhaps teaching isn't quite as valuable as you think. Has that ever occurred to you? Or, perhaps unctuous grandstanding should supplant market forces.
- cannonedhamster 9y ago
  Let me know when the US has "market forces" unattached to rent seeking behavior. There are no major markets that aren't receiving mass amounts of corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks, incentives, or monopoly protections.
oldboyFX 9y ago
Do you think there are biological differences between genders ? For example, is the fact that men tend to negotiate more a social construct, or is it based in biology? Should society tax men for their behavior and redistribute the wealth to women? I'm not arguing for any side by the way. Not sure what to think of this myself.
- rarec 9y ago
  A bachelor tax? I mean, really, what would that actually solve?
- hackinthebochs 9y ago
  I think we discount the behavioral effects of testosterone across the board. T is known to increase status-seeking behavior which surely has an influence in career choices.
  - mpweiher 9y ago
    And risk taking. Assuming more risk on average yields higher returns. There was a study in Germany where under laboratory conditions, women still chose less risky strategies than men and therefore earned around 20% less in the scenarios they tried.
sushisource 9y ago
I don't see how it's "embarrassing" for this article to be on HN. It addresses your point exactly in the first few paragraphs: "These numbers do not show that the labour market is free of sex discrimination. However, they do suggest that the main problem today is not unequal pay for equal work, but whatever it is that leads women to be in lower-ranking jobs at lower-paying organisations."
- johnfn 9y ago
  That's not my point, though. My essential argument is that sexism creeps in when you say that women select lower-ranking jobs by default. I don't think that's actually true. I think it's more that society views the jobs women work as lower-ranking.
  - hackinthebochs 9y ago
    But there's no reason to think that when you consider that jobs generally considered "women's work" require (relatively) less education, or aren't inherently dangerous or physically demanding. There is a glut of supply so the market value of those jobs drops. Consider nursing which is relatively high paying precisely because of the education requirements, specialization, and difficulty of the work. Wages are even rising now because of the shortage. Market forces explain the salary distributions much easier than sexism collectively driving down prices against market forces.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      > Consider nursing But even in nursing we see men being promoted faster than women. When we ask why there are so few women tech leaders, or women in tech, we're told it's a pipeline problem: not enough women in STEM education. But that's not the case for nursing. So why do men get promoted over women? Here are some numbers from England. I've picked midwifery and ambulance staff, because there's some contrast there. Midwives Payband Men Women Total Ratio men:women Band 5 11 2301 2312 0.00:1.00 Band 6 57 18294 18351 0.00:1.00 Band 7 36 4663 4699 0.01:0.99 Band 8a 2 183 185 0.01:0.99 Band 8b 1 31 32 0.03:0.97 Band 8c 2 15 17 0.12:0.88 Ambulance staff Payband men women total ratio men:women Band 4 2222 1479 3701 0.60:0.40 Band 5 5986 4072 10058 0.60:0.40 Band 6 3553 1889 5442 0.65:0.35 Band 7 610 202 812 0.75:0.25 Band 8a 85 25 110 0.77:0.23 Band 8b 49 10 59 0.83:0.17 Band 8c 14 1 15 0.93:0.07 Band 8d 14 1 15 0.93:0.07 http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?productid=23815 http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?pr...
saint_fiasco 9y ago
I don't get why this article embarrasses you. Surely it's important to figure out exactly where the sexism resides, so we know how to fix it. If the pay gap almost disappears when accounting for job differences, then the problem can't be solved at the workplace. It's too late at that point. Further study might reveal that women choose less profitable majors at University, for example. If that were the case, the problem won't be solved at University either, it would be too late at that point. Further study could look at how women are socialized at high-school, middle-school and so on, until we find the cause. Complaining about people who study that stuff because you think they are insufficiently committed to the cause is counter-productive.
Houshalter 9y ago
Maybe it is sexism. But I'm not convinced its sexism against women. In our society men are mostly valued for their profession and how much they make. Women generally aren't. So of course men try to get into higher paying and higher status careers. They spend more effort to move up the ladder. Women don't have that same pressure. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing, for them.
bmcusick 9y ago
> Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. Almost no job is paid the full value it produces. There's always a split between the buyer of the job (whoever is paying the wage) and the seller of the job (who is receiving the wage). If the job-buyer didn't get any value, why would they buy it? The question is: How is the split determined? Basically it's about negotiating leverage. Someone who is nearly irreplaceable (like Koby Bryant or Paul Buchheit) has a lot of leverage and can demand a lot. Someone who can be replaced easily has little leverage and gets a lower wage. The problem with teaching isn't that it's female dominated. It's that too many people want to be teachers, because they enjoy teaching. Also because teaching doesn't measure the output of workers it's harder for the great ones to demand higher wages; they just get the average, like the bad teachers.
rufusroflpunch 9y ago
Considering that there is an entire "Equal Pay for Equal Work" movement, this is actually extremely relevant. TFA addresses this issue specifically. It's saying that people who are shooting for "equal pay for equal work" are barking up the wrong tree. This article, which you say is embarrassing, is actually agreeing with you.
rayiner 9y ago
You've got the causation backwards. Society pushes women into jobs it values less. There is nothing about teaching that makes it a woman's job--the majority of teachers in India for example are men.
gaius 9y ago
It also happens to be way, way underpaid. A teacher's job security and pension plan aren't available in the private sector at all. It's a complete myth that they are underpaid, focusing on salary alone and not considering the value of the whole package.
dionidium 9y ago
A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. Teachers are underpaid? According to whom? Mid-career teachers make roughly the median household income in the U.S. (and with summers off).

by johnfn 9y ago

darawk 9y ago

> The whole point is that the way society systematically undervalues women-dominated professions is sexism at work. What? Can you explain how that is possible? As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. People are paid according to the value they produce. To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding. EDIT: In your edit you added the example of teaching. And that is, fairish. I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism, it's a consequence of the structure of our education system. They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy.

Others 9y ago
The problem is gender roles. Women are taught by society to think that, as women, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like teaching, tend to be lower paid than the careers men are encouraged to go into.
- darawk 9y ago
  Now that is an explanation I can get behind. I think that there is a degree to which society socializes women to prefer lower paid jobs. That I think is absolutely legitimate. But the idea that sexism causes us to value those jobs less is, I think, absurd.
  - haikuginger 9y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...
    - hackinthebochs 9y ago
      That's such a silly article. There are so many confounding factors as to make any attempt at determining causation specious. Women's employment rate grew massively over that time period. This means that jobs requiring no specialized skills would receive an influx of job seekers. If we assume the employment rate of men stayed the same over that period, we would expect all jobs that require no specialized skills or physical demands would reduce in wages as the demand for those jobs increased. As far as computer programming goes, it literally was a clerical job early on. Wages rose as the job started requiring more specialized skills (which apparently women couldn't or didn't want to get).
      - Noos 9y ago
        i think one forgotten issue is the part-time economy. I know in retail just as the work shifted to part time on demand hours, women's participation increased because it's easier for women to work part time than men.
    - darawk 9y ago
      In other news, economists discover that supply and demand balance to create price! When the supply of a thing goes up but the demand doesn't, the price goes down.
- rarec 9y ago
  >The problem is gender roles. Men are taught by society to think that, as men, they should go into certain careers. These careers, like software development, tend to be higher paid than the careers women are encouraged to go into. Kinda works both ways as an argument. If they were so concerned about pay, they can try and negotiate for more. Men are taught/encouraged to do this more from a young age. If you want to be paid more, you gotta haggle, you can't just accept the price on the sticker.
- klipt 9y ago
  Men are pressured to be breadwinners, so they are more likely to pick careers based on pay. Women are not pressured to be breadwinners, so they're more likely to pick careers that sound fulfilling and satisfying, but are less lucrative. Media likes to focus on the pay gap, but has anyone investigated the fulfillment and satisfaction gap? I wouldn't be surprised if overall men are less fulfilled and satisfied by their jobs.
  - rarec 9y ago
    Men are typically raised from a young age that you do defines your worth. Women are typically raised with the idea that they have value in and of themselves. There are pros and cons to both sides of encouragement.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      Too many women are raised to believe not that they have value in and of themselves but that their value is in their reproductive potential.
      - AjithAntony 9y ago
        I'd say both men and women at some level value themselves in their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Women feel value by being attractive to men. And Men feel value by being attractive to women. Men are attracted to women who display youth and beauty as a proxy for reproductive value, and women are attracted to wealth and status as a proxy for support.
        twobyfour 9y ago
        Sure, but women are taught (mostly subconsciously but in some ways explicitly) that their primary value as human beings is in physical attractiveness when young, in their fertility in their 20s, and in their ability to nurture when older. We teach men that their value is in their accomplishments, which is a) more empowering; b) more under their control; and c) more conducive to independence and pursuit of self-realization (in career or in other aspects of life), positions of power, and yes, powerful and high-paid careers.
- merb 9y ago
  actually that even starts in the early life. with barbie or special lego's just for women. p.s.: my niche loves my old lego's more than the girlish ones.
- michaelbuddy 9y ago
  "taught by society" feel free to source that in a way that can be proven. The assertion is just pseudo intellectual excuse making. Society is NOT telling women to NOT be sanitation workers. Society is not telling women not to work on offshore oil rigs. Society is not telling women not to be surgeons but to in fact be veterinarians. Society and "gender role" excuses don't hold up to reality. Time to accept that the women you know, or imagine you know make their choices, largely based on their own interests. You're welcome to try to convince women to become sanitation workers rather than paralegal interns in climate controlled offices. Good luck on that.
  - davidcbc 9y ago
    I don't see how you can possibly claim that society doesn't discourage women from pursuing "manly" careers. By the same token men are discouraged from pursuing "feminine" careers. If a man says they are going to work on an offshore oil rig they are much less likely to get societal push back than a woman because it is seen as a normal thing for a man to do but not a woman. If a woman is an elementary school teacher it is considered completely normal, whereas men are often looked down upon for doing so. The same happens with male nurses. How can you read all the stories about sexual harassment in our industry and not think women are being discouraged from pursuing careers in tech?
    - MartinCron 9y ago
      It's not just our industry, ever hear the horror stories of women breaking into other male dominated fields like policing? The idea that there aren't multiple forces, often brutal ones, nudging men and women into particular fields is just preposterous.
    - michaelbuddy 9y ago
      You're just saying words, you've got no examples of where rubber meets the road. Just that "men are looked down upon for being elementary school teachers" What? Where? And female oil rig workers get "societal pushback" Again just words. Where? How? You've got nothing here so far. I mean if you want to talk about cultural influence there's way more news articles celebrating women doing various things, celebrating women entrepreneurs, women soldiers, women and minority events and special recognition or conferences. Read all the stories about sexual harassment? Anecdotally I've seen just as much sexual language coming from women in IT as men in terms of workers. Project mgrs, network admins, probably a few more. And those instances were miniscule and didn't make up anywhere near a day to day problem for people. I have seen instances where a guy who was being a dick treated women poorly. He got a talking to and cut that out. I've seen women take their day out on men and women and never got any kind of talking to. It's really funny you're pointing to some sort of dysfunction and not demonstrating or sourcing anything but "all those stories"
- twa19999 9y ago
  It is not taught by society, it is genetics. In such traditional, Catholic society as Poland women often choose the same careers as men: IT specialists, managers, business owners. In a progressive such as Norway they much more often choose careers such as nurse or teacher. The reason behind this is economics: in Norway teacher or nurse salary guarantees pretty decent standard of living. In Poland these are very low pay jobs. So, women when given a choice will choose traditional women professions because that's their nature. In fact I think women are more hurt by the opposite: the feminist movement that teaches them that they should want the same things men want. And the one thing that is virtually guaranteed to make women happy, that is having a child is discouraged as being "relict of patriarchal oppression" or something like that.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  In some countries. China, India, Romania, Ukraine and a few others seem to have no shortage of women going into STEM.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Women seek men with resources to reproduce with. Men tend to only care about youth/fertility. It's not like men can start reproducing with women who are no longer fertile, so they can't possibly lower the bar any further. Since women don't have social pressure to gather resources in order to reproduce, men are going to dominate in higher paying professions. This is similar to the same argument Christopher Hitchens famously made in his Vanity Fair article about why women aren't funny. It's not that women can't be funny, obviously many are. It's that they don't need to be funny to get laid. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 If you want to resolve this problem you need to either ask women to lower the bar and not seek men with resources or ask men to raise the bar and demand that women not only be youthful/fertile, but also have resources. Good luck.
- Noos 9y ago
  or it could be these careers speak more to women's aspirations than others. If an important goal for a woman is to have a family and children, working at higher paid jobs that require tremendous hours and travel are not going to be attractive. If the same is for men, likewise...the family man who turns down traveling or relocating, and can't work massive overtime will see his prospects decline too. A lot of the problem with gender roles is many feminists have internalized male actions as the norm and female actions as inferior...so they see women as underpaid over as having the flexibility to raise a family
johnfn 9y ago
> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. That's not true. Very easy counterexample: negotiation. Women are generally less inclined to negotiate then men, causing them to earn lower salaries. Does that mean that people value jobs performed by men who negotiate more than jobs performed by women who don't? Of course not - it has nothing to do with the value-add at all.
- darawk 9y ago
  That's not sexism, though. That's women negotiating less.
  - mrkurt 9y ago
    It's not individual sexism, but it _is_ systematic sexism. Women generally don't handle negotiating the same as men. But negotiation skills aren't relevant to most jobs. So if that's a factor in how people get paid, it's _systematically_ sexist.
    - darawk 9y ago
      I disagree. Women have the same opportunity to negotiate that men do. The fact that they choose to negotiate less is on them.
      - mrkurt 9y ago
        Do you agree that negotiation skills don't matter for most jobs? And do you agree that people should be compensated based on the value they bring to a job? Because sexism or no, I think it's a tremendous problem when people get ahead for completely tangential reasons to their job performance and skills.
        hnnsj 9y ago
        How is it sexism is sex is not a factor?
burkaman 9y ago
What do you think causes such extreme gender disparities in positions like CEO, or board of directors?
- darawk 9y ago
  I don't know. There are many possible explanations. One is sexism. Another is that women are less likely to negotiate. Another is that maybe women tend to be CEOs of companies that are less valuable, or that rely less on the expertise of their CEO.
  - cannonedhamster 9y ago
    Women are less likely to negotiate because of the societal views of women who are shrewd negotiators. The societal pressure on women to be passive is immense. Just look at women in politics for numerous examples. That's what's sexist about it. There are different expectations of people based solely on gender, and that further divides into race with black women at the bottom of that pool. You need only listen to the experiences of women founders in Silicon Valley to realize your comment really doesn't match up with what really happens. Women, especially in the tech sector, are treated like personal sex objects of some VCs. There is not a single situation you listed above that cannot be attributed to similarity bias or cultural bias against, both completely unintentional.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    Ok, so why are they less likely to negotiate, why are they more likely to ascend at less valuable companies, etc. The whole point of talking about the wage gap is figuring out why it exists. And inevitably, there are only two possible ends to this investigation. Either there are inherent biological differences that cause women to be less effective and valuable in our economy, or some societal manifestation of sexism is causing these differences. As far as I can tell there is no other possible answer.
    - darawk 9y ago
      Yep, that's correct. And it's almost certainly a mixture of the two. I'm not saying there isn't sexism involved, i'm just saying that it's more likely to be on the side of socializing young girls into choosing less remunerative professions.
chickenfries 9y ago
> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. There is no way for that to be 'sexist'. I challenge you to question if either of these assumptions hold in all cases or just in an idealized world where everyone is a "rational consumer."
- darawk 9y ago
  No, certainly it doesn't happen in all cases. But the idea that there is a systematic bias against female-dominated professions is just silly.
kazinator 9y ago
Sexism is present in those forces which guide girls and women toward those under-valued positions. > I'd grant you that teachers are underpaid, but that isn't sexism Sure; however a statement like "teaching is work befitting a woman" would be sexism.
- darawk 9y ago
  Absolutely agree. It is sexist to socialize girls into specific professions. It is sexist to say "x is work befitting a woman". But women-dominated professions being paid less is not sexist.
JimboOmega 9y ago
Well, imagine a scenario where women are initially not in the labor force. But they want to work, same as anyone Then, one day, society changes. "You can work, but you can only be a nurse, teacher, or secretary". You don't think there'd be a supply glut driving down wages in those areas? Suppressing them over a long period as women gradually enter the labor force there? And by the same token, that society that says you can't be an engineer or a CEO because you are a woman - that severely punishes those women who do seek those jobs - you don't think women would respond to that? That even if they could produce more economic value, the societal pressure can override the capitalist tendencies of organizations and individuals to maximize wealth?
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  Are you insinuating that women - today - are forced into that narrow set of professions if they want to work?
  - johnchristopher 9y ago
    Why the emphase on `forced` and `today` ?
    - lr4444lr 9y ago
      Because it would make sense 50 or more years ago, when women were openly shut out from other professions. That's not to say the after-effects of those outmoded cultural traditions aren't having an impact, but to claim that this accounts entirely or even majorly for the professional disparity in female representation demands evidence.
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    Certainly that was the case in the past, and cultural inertia is real. This allows inequities and biases to persist over time. So although women are not forced to choose teaching, for example, there are more teaching role models who are women and culture nudges women towards that career. This causes the persistent inequity in career pay that was caused in part by the original influx of women into the field when explicit sexism was rampant.
lloydde 9y ago
"People are paid according to the value they produce" grossly simplifies compensation. If we must generalize compensation: people are paid the lowest amount they will accept. Supply and demand and value are central to the equation, but large variability in compensation among near identical profiles in the US and Canadian software sectors is an indicator that the individual isn't good at knowing their value.
usefulcat 9y ago
"They're not underpaid because they're women, they're underpaid because they're being paid by a bureaucracy." That's a theory. The relevant question is, what evidence exists to support or refute that theory?
- darawk 9y ago
  The fact that male teachers are equally underpaid, pretty clearly.
UncleMeat 9y ago
Pay and prestige of educators has diminished as it has become more female dominated. This is a pattern seen across many industries when they shift from male dominated to female dominated. This suggests that there is a relationship between gender distributions in a job and its prestige and value given by society. Not all jobs have direct "money in, money out" relations that you can use to judge value. This opens the door for all sorts of cultural bias that affects how people decide how much a particular job is "worth".
- ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
  Women have been the majority of teachers in the US for over a hundred years
- ashark 9y ago
  Has prestige also dropped for doctors and lawyers? They're not professions dominated by women AFAIK, but women've become quite well represented in them since the ~mid 80s, so one might expect to see this effect there. I know job prospects aren't as hot for lawyers as they once were[1], but it's still one of very few professions that I'd expect to reliably make someone's parents' eyebrows go up and an "oh!" issue from their mouth on hearing their kid's dating one, ya know? So the prestige is still there, unless I've missed something. And doctors are doctors, so certainly in that category, too. I really doubt "software developer" automatically gains one anywhere near as much social capital, in general company and without further favorable details/context. [1] as you correctly wrote, "Not all jobs have direct 'money in, money out' relations that you can use to judge value."
ordu 9y ago
> As far as I know, people value things according to what value they obtain from them. Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all. > To call that sexist is just completely inconsistent with any reasonable conception of economics to my understanding. Conception of economics is a theory. Reality is something different, theory is just simplified description of reality. Theory is much more formal, more simple and more understandable. Theory exists only in human mind as some entity of informational nature, while reality... well, reality is just a reality. Theory offers us laws that works in most cases. Or more precise, that laws works while axioms postulated by theory are fulfilled. But reality just works, it does not follow our laws and rules, it just works somehow. No absolute truth exists. Every one axiom sometimes is not true. In a case when axioms are not true, theory becomes unreliable. If you think to rely on laws of some theory, then first you should check whether all relevant axioms are fullfilled in your case. People use word "economics" and mean either theory or reality depending on context. This leads to confusion and inability to see the difference. Train youself to separate theory and reality on every occasion, try every time to use different words for theory and reality and you'll become immune to such mistakes. As I undestand such a theory as economics, "people value things according to what value they obtain from them" itself is axiom. Here you see some case where axiom is false: its just a matter of fact. So reality and theory are different here substantially. You should choose some other theory to deal with such situation.
- darawk 9y ago
  > Yes. But I think you miss one point. People are not rational beings (even trained ones are not), and "value they obtained" is a result of some psychological process which is not strictly rational. And if people estimate value obtained from employee by sex of that employee, it would be not surprising at all. I agree in part. I agree wholeheartedly that the rational actor model is (at best) incomplete. We are not rational beings making perfect value judgments moment to moment. I further admit it is possible that, in individual interactions, the gender of the employee/agent we are interacting with may be a factor in price considerations. However, ultimately prices are set by supply and demand. What the OP is positing, is that demand is suppressed by sexism. What would this mean? Some female-dominated professions are: Nursing, teaching, and social work [1]. Now think about what would have to be true in order for the OP's point to be correct. People would have to systematically demand less nursing, teaching, and social work in order to achieve the result they were implying. Do you think that is plausible? When thinking about intra-profession discrimination, I would have no problem attributing that to sexism. That is, if you said to me that female teachers are systematically paid less than their male counterparts, i'd be all for labelling that sexism. But that's not what's being posited here. What's being posited is that because certain professions are dominated by women, people consume them less. People want less of them. But what is a profession's role in the world if not to generate its own demand? If people aren't demanding your services, you find a new profession. In other words, if demand for the services women choose to provide is so elastic that it can be depressed by sexism, then maybe they ought to find better services to provide. Services that are important enough that the demand for them is non-negotiable, and can never be suppressed by sexist preferences. 1. http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by-women-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by...

mathperson 9y ago

Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. But it isn't really subject to market forces the way software engineering is. A better teacher doesn't bring in more revenue and profit for a public school. Most teachers work in public schools. I am not disagreeing with you in general (I am not taking a stand either way) but this is a pretty silly example.

johnnyb9 9y ago
So they are valuable, so long as you don't value them with money.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  They're not paid more because their unions negotiate a fixed salary schedule through collective bargaining, and most teachers support this state of affairs. It's hardly a pure value judgment on the part of "society".
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  Male teachers face the same issue. But really, salary is only one component of what they are paid. Just about any teacher that survives to an old age will beat me earnings wise with their pension, which they don't have to fund. I have to fund my own 401K or IRA, as well as pay into the teacher's pension fund with my property taxes.
- disc 9y ago
  Is the system setup to value them with money? Can a parent walk into a school and agree to higher property taxes if their kid is placed in a specific teacher's classroom?

kazinator 9y ago

I suspect many people understand the "pay gap" as being that women get paid less for doing the same work with the same qualifications as men. Whereas the socio-economic dynamic of women being driven by various forces, at play throughout their lives, into lower paying jobs (in which men are also paid less), which is what you seem to be writing about, is something other than "pay gap".

klipt 9y ago

Teachers make more per hour than doctors, when you factor in benefits like pension and not having huge medical school loans: http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/ http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/salary-of-doctors/

dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y ago
Teachers work long hours after school. Also, I was under the impression the money in being a generic "doctor" was running your own practice.
hypersoar 9y ago
That graphic assumes that doctors work 59.6 hours per week, which sounds like a number pulled from somewhere, and that teachers work 40 hours per week, which sounds like they're assuming a "standard" work week. But that only makes sense if you assume teachers barely work more than the school day itself, which seems implausible. It also assumes that teachers work 38 weeks per year. That would mean a 3.5-month summer break, which doesn't really match with reality.
- nilkn 9y ago
  My SO is a high school teacher and it's actually pretty close to reality for her. She has had the entire summer off and still has over two weeks left before she goes back to work. During the school year, she probably does average more than 40 hours per week, but the excess is flexible and often done at her convenience and at home. That's quite a bit better than a 3AM emergency call to the operating room. And it's never 20 hours of excess. She also got a signing bonus and all her undergraduate tuition debt paid off as part of the job offer. And she really does get a fully-funded pension.
  - vacri 9y ago
    > That's quite a bit better than a 3AM emergency call to the operating room. We need to quit with this idea that all doctors are either emergency physicians or emergency surgeons. Most doctors are not that. And does anyone really believe that if teachers worked just a few more hours per week, they'd all be driving maseratis?

cubecul 9y ago

I don't share your embarrassment. There's a significant chunk of the country that doesn't understand the issue - they think the claim is about blatantly discriminatory practices. In some cases, I'm not sure that even the people who do advocate for solutions to the pay gap truly understand what the core issue is. Both of this caused by the way all of this has been worded. Worth clarifying all of this as much as possible to work towards putting everyone on the same understanding of the situation.

johnfn 9y ago
Yes, the wage gap isn't literally about cigar-smoking men in dark rooms deciding to systematically pay women less. It's more like someone who claims not to see gender paying women less because men negotiated or "seemed more confident". I'm embarrassed because this kind of stuff can and will be used to continue the narrative of "women make just as much as men" which isn't true.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

dsacco 9y ago

In what way is teaching underpaid?

illuminati1911 9y ago

And job differences are individual decisions. We can finally stop the "women are being paid less/discriminated ...yadayada..." -horseshit. Teaching is done/funded by the society in most cases and paid with tax dollars. Some jobs being "underpaid" or paid too much are problems that come from the lack of real capitalism where everybody would be paid their actual market value and we could remove the whole word "underpaid" from the dictionary. It embarrasses me to see someone not realizing this.

johnfn 9y ago
> And job differences are individual decisions. What? So you became a (I assume) programmer due to yourself alone? You didn't have any help learning how to use a computer from your parents, you didn't have any encouragement of your peers to continue, you weren't influenced at all by society and how it favors certain behaviors, no good teachers helped you learn the requisite math or science or critical thinking? It was all entirely a decision made in a vacuum? Your viewpoint is far too reductionistic.
- illuminati1911 9y ago
  I don't know why you care about anecdotes, but if you do: I became a software developer because I though computers were interesting. My friends called me a geek. My father tried to stop me because he wanted me to work in a construction industry LIKE THE REAL MEN DO. My mother wanted me to become a lawyer because it is a respectful profession unlike being a nerd. For about 10 years my parents continuously tried to prevent me from using computers and told me to "go outside and play" etc. So did I become a construction worker or a lawyer? Nope. Did I become a software engineer? Yes. How? Individual decision. I make my my own decision in life. Sometimes definitely influenced by others, but so what? If I get influenced by them it's my responsibility to handle it in the proper way and look for other opinions too. People pretend to be a weak and try to shift responsibility to other people/society deserve no pity.
sgt101 9y ago
Isn't capitalism about the use of capital to control and manage markets? If I will £5m on the lottery and then set up a company investing that money am I worth the 4% a year I should (probably would) make? The value of your teachers (or lack of value) will only become apparent over time - a long time. The value of your doctor may become absolute to you, several times over your life. God forbid that you or yours fall sick, but should your doctor be able to demand all of your worldly goods to heal you? What about farmers - should they gang together and refuse to supply food until starvation set in would that allow them to demand all of the cities wealth? If no then what is needed - is it a rule of law that enforces particular norms of behaviour?

cisanti 9y ago

Then what do you say to all the men who either die or lose their health doing difficult and dangerous jobs, often for peanuts? If you can't prove me men teachers are being paid more, your argument is invalid. Women choose very different careers and that's fine, but the choice is there.

johnfn 9y ago
> If you can't prove me men teachers are being paid more, your argument is invalid. Teaching as a profession is underpaid, and I don't think that teaching being dominated by women is a coincidence.
- gaius 9y ago
  Teachers are paid way, way more than soldiers or firefighters or refuse collectors or miners or meatpackers...
  - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
    I don't think so, for all of those at least, e.g. http://www.careerprofiles.info/middle-school-teacher-salaries.html http://www.careerprofiles.info/middle-school-teacher-salarie... http://www.careerprofiles.info/fire-fighter-salaries.html http://www.careerprofiles.info/fire-fighter-salaries.html
- hackinthebochs 9y ago
  Why do discussions like this always avoid any talk about market value? Teachers are paid relatively less because its not hard to become a teacher and there are a lot of people willing to do it.

elsurudo 9y ago

There are male teachers, too.

jxcole 9y ago

You summarize the exact point of the article perfectly: women are paid less not because they have the same job and are paid less, but because they are offered different jobs which pay less. To address sexism we should focus on making sure women have the same opportunities to do the same job that men do, rather than just trying to make sure everyone in a certain job category is paid the same. What about this is embarrassing? Do you fee that women don't deserve the same high paying jobs as men? It seems you are demonizing an article for saying the exact same thing that you are...

mpweiher 9y ago
> they are offered different jobs ?? How about they choose different jobs?

pithic 9y ago

Perhaps teaching isn't quite as valuable as you think. Has that ever occurred to you? Or, perhaps unctuous grandstanding should supplant market forces.

cannonedhamster 9y ago
Let me know when the US has "market forces" unattached to rent seeking behavior. There are no major markets that aren't receiving mass amounts of corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks, incentives, or monopoly protections.

oldboyFX 9y ago

Do you think there are biological differences between genders ? For example, is the fact that men tend to negotiate more a social construct, or is it based in biology? Should society tax men for their behavior and redistribute the wealth to women? I'm not arguing for any side by the way. Not sure what to think of this myself.

rarec 9y ago
A bachelor tax? I mean, really, what would that actually solve?
hackinthebochs 9y ago
I think we discount the behavioral effects of testosterone across the board. T is known to increase status-seeking behavior which surely has an influence in career choices.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  And risk taking. Assuming more risk on average yields higher returns. There was a study in Germany where under laboratory conditions, women still chose less risky strategies than men and therefore earned around 20% less in the scenarios they tried.

sushisource 9y ago

I don't see how it's "embarrassing" for this article to be on HN. It addresses your point exactly in the first few paragraphs: "These numbers do not show that the labour market is free of sex discrimination. However, they do suggest that the main problem today is not unequal pay for equal work, but whatever it is that leads women to be in lower-ranking jobs at lower-paying organisations."

johnfn 9y ago
That's not my point, though. My essential argument is that sexism creeps in when you say that women select lower-ranking jobs by default. I don't think that's actually true. I think it's more that society views the jobs women work as lower-ranking.
- hackinthebochs 9y ago
  But there's no reason to think that when you consider that jobs generally considered "women's work" require (relatively) less education, or aren't inherently dangerous or physically demanding. There is a glut of supply so the market value of those jobs drops. Consider nursing which is relatively high paying precisely because of the education requirements, specialization, and difficulty of the work. Wages are even rising now because of the shortage. Market forces explain the salary distributions much easier than sexism collectively driving down prices against market forces.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > Consider nursing But even in nursing we see men being promoted faster than women. When we ask why there are so few women tech leaders, or women in tech, we're told it's a pipeline problem: not enough women in STEM education. But that's not the case for nursing. So why do men get promoted over women? Here are some numbers from England. I've picked midwifery and ambulance staff, because there's some contrast there. Midwives Payband Men Women Total Ratio men:women Band 5 11 2301 2312 0.00:1.00 Band 6 57 18294 18351 0.00:1.00 Band 7 36 4663 4699 0.01:0.99 Band 8a 2 183 185 0.01:0.99 Band 8b 1 31 32 0.03:0.97 Band 8c 2 15 17 0.12:0.88 Ambulance staff Payband men women total ratio men:women Band 4 2222 1479 3701 0.60:0.40 Band 5 5986 4072 10058 0.60:0.40 Band 6 3553 1889 5442 0.65:0.35 Band 7 610 202 812 0.75:0.25 Band 8a 85 25 110 0.77:0.23 Band 8b 49 10 59 0.83:0.17 Band 8c 14 1 15 0.93:0.07 Band 8d 14 1 15 0.93:0.07 http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?productid=23815 http://content.digital.nhs.uk/article/2021/Website-Search?pr...

saint_fiasco 9y ago

I don't get why this article embarrasses you. Surely it's important to figure out exactly where the sexism resides, so we know how to fix it. If the pay gap almost disappears when accounting for job differences, then the problem can't be solved at the workplace. It's too late at that point. Further study might reveal that women choose less profitable majors at University, for example. If that were the case, the problem won't be solved at University either, it would be too late at that point. Further study could look at how women are socialized at high-school, middle-school and so on, until we find the cause. Complaining about people who study that stuff because you think they are insufficiently committed to the cause is counter-productive.

Houshalter 9y ago

Maybe it is sexism. But I'm not convinced its sexism against women. In our society men are mostly valued for their profession and how much they make. Women generally aren't. So of course men try to get into higher paying and higher status careers. They spend more effort to move up the ladder. Women don't have that same pressure. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing, for them.

bmcusick 9y ago

> Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. Almost no job is paid the full value it produces. There's always a split between the buyer of the job (whoever is paying the wage) and the seller of the job (who is receiving the wage). If the job-buyer didn't get any value, why would they buy it? The question is: How is the split determined? Basically it's about negotiating leverage. Someone who is nearly irreplaceable (like Koby Bryant or Paul Buchheit) has a lot of leverage and can demand a lot. Someone who can be replaced easily has little leverage and gets a lower wage. The problem with teaching isn't that it's female dominated. It's that too many people want to be teachers, because they enjoy teaching. Also because teaching doesn't measure the output of workers it's harder for the great ones to demand higher wages; they just get the average, like the bad teachers.

rufusroflpunch 9y ago

Considering that there is an entire "Equal Pay for Equal Work" movement, this is actually extremely relevant. TFA addresses this issue specifically. It's saying that people who are shooting for "equal pay for equal work" are barking up the wrong tree. This article, which you say is embarrassing, is actually agreeing with you.

rayiner 9y ago

You've got the causation backwards. Society pushes women into jobs it values less. There is nothing about teaching that makes it a woman's job--the majority of teachers in India for example are men.

gaius 9y ago

It also happens to be way, way underpaid. A teacher's job security and pension plan aren't available in the private sector at all. It's a complete myth that they are underpaid, focusing on salary alone and not considering the value of the whole package.

dionidium 9y ago

A good example is teaching. Teaching is an incredibly valuable job. It's also dominated by women. It also happens to be way, way underpaid. Teachers are underpaid? According to whom? Mid-career teachers make roughly the median household income in the U.S. (and with summers off).