4 ms·

While I share your aspiration, let me make an inflammatory question for the purpose of prompting thought. (I would hope readers take this as a neutral statement

While I share your aspiration, let me make an inflammatory question for the purpose of prompting thought. (I would hope readers take this as a neutral statement; since obviously the women entering the workforce see it as a net positive, but it may be a line of questioning to attempt to explain why it's so easy to see it as a gender battle) What if it is zero sum, or at least, approaching that? There are two phenomena going on that make me contemplate this; double income household normalization, and a somewhat sticky total # of jobs. As women further enter the workforce, the mean household income will trend towards double income, and the labor pool will be contested with more applicants, in both cases rendering a male applicant at a substantial disadvantage (comparatively to history). The way one could rebut this would be to suggest that this inflation hasn't taken place, and that the total # of jobs has scaled accordingly. A brief search hasn't turned up anything on my end, so don't take this musing as any more than posing questions. My pessimism lends me to think that the conflict I summarized above will be a rallying call for certain groups on both sides of the fold for many years to come; recent political discourse does not lend me hope for a broad view of "togetherness".

bmay 9y ago
more qualified women in the workforce => greater efficiency, increase in net jobs created, lower prices => increased benefits for everyone
groby_b 9y ago
I'm not sure where you're seeing a "somewhat sticky # of jobs": https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-time-employees-in-the-usa-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-ti... , https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons As for "a brief search": I literally went to Google, typed "number of jobs" with the first suggestion being "number of jobs in us by year". The very first link has the answer. May I suggest that when you ask inflammatory question, you invest a tiny bit more in research? Otherwise, one could come to the conclusion that maybe you're more interested in the inflammatory than in the thought part. I'm sure that's not what you intend. But if you care about "togetherness" in political discourse, it's imperative to temper inflammatory requests with more than an absolutely cursory search for facts.
- existencebox 9y ago
  I was unclear with my "sticky jobs" statement; and referred primarily to the initial rate of change of women entering the workforce. I did try to look at the data for that, but while there is a spike of labor participation rate (per capita/% seems a much better metric than absolute #) during the male/female convergence in the 50's/60s as womens rights progressed, it seemed primarily externality driven. [0] That being said, I'd try and better make my main point: As a sister post states, there's the intuitive fact that remedying discrimination is by definition going to cause the previously elevated party to lose that. This is the core of what I was trying to get at; that I'm not sure "it's not a zero sum game" is going to convince people who focus on this aspect of it. Maybe there's an argument that you don't need to/can't convince someone that opposed, but that's the heart of my pessimism about the aformentioned togetherness. (Another sister post made the explanation of the lump of labor fallacy, which I had learned at one point and unfortunately forgotten as it far better responds to the hypothetical I posed) [0]https://dqydj.com/the-male-female-unemployment-gap/ https://dqydj.com/the-male-female-unemployment-gap/ (Ignoring the writing, the data is from stlousifed)
  - groby_b 9y ago
    Ah, that makes much more sense, thank you. > there's the intuitive fact that remedying discrimination is by definition going to cause the previously elevated party to lose that I think it's more than an intuitive fact. There's at least one study I can think of - "Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man"[1]. And it seems to support the idea that there's a loss, at least in the short term, for the previously elevated party. I still don't think it's a zero-sum game in the long term. But that is at the core of the problem - people feel threatened now, they don't always care that in the long run, things might turn out well. Which prompted me to write my reply in the first place - anything that reinforces the notion of a zero-sum game is incredibly toxic to resolving this issue. And even if we'd all be at our most level-headed selves, it's a rather hard issue to solve. (It's worth noting that we're off on quite a tangent. None of the above really relates to sexual harassment that much. That is an abuse of power. While I'm an avowed feminist, I'm not convinced that simply having more equality in the work force will solve the issue of harassment. That likely requires a huge cultural shift to our basic mode of thinking) [1] http://perseus.iies.su.se/~tpers/papers/Draft170122AER.pdf http://perseus.iies.su.se/~tpers/papers/Draft170122AER.pdf
mannykannot 9y ago
> ...in both cases rendering a male applicant at a substantial disadvantage (comparatively to history). The reduction of inequalities tends to have this sort of effect on those who benefitted from inequality, more or less by definition. I will go along with your stated intention of wanting to provoke thought by saying that I think it is a bogus argument against equality, that ignores the unjustifiable harm done by discrimination. Furthermore, by itself, it does not establish the 'zero sum' part of 'zero sum game'. BTW, grammatically speaking, the 'it' in the question you pose appears to refer to the 'sexual harassment' of the title, but your comment seems to be about something else altogether.
avz 9y ago
> [...] sticky total # of jobs. As women further enter the workforce, the mean household income will trend towards double income, and the labor pool will be contested with more applicants, in both cases rendering a male applicant at a substantial disadvantage (comparatively to history). Isn't this the lump of labor fallacy [1]? I think the economic theory leads to a different description: As more women enter the workforce, the aggregate income goes up. Some of it is spent and becomes someone else's income. Some of it is saved in a bank which loans it out or invests it. The receiving business then spends it and once again the money becomes someone else's income. IOW, as more people work, both aggregate demand and aggregate income rise. The economy shifts into a higher gear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It seems a little sketchy to me that apparently labor is exempt from the basic laws of supply and demand. Fundamentally, enlarging the supply of workers, through the entry of women, ending systemic discrimination against minorities, elimination of early retirement while reducing demand should have an effect on the price of labor. I’ve worked for large institutions that have been performing the same work for decades and I’m familiar with their employment statistics. By any measure, they are using fewer person-hours of labor annually. About 40% less since 1997, about 60% less than 1987. One subdivision in particular replaced about 3,000 workers with 50 IT guys and about $10M in annual IT spend circa 1995. Those labor costs are held in check by a constant stream of cheap contractors.
  - mannykannot 9y ago
    The basic laws of supply and demand have two sides, but you are just looking at supply. The post you are replying to contains a suggestion as to why the demand side may, at least in some circumstances, mask or compensate for supply-side effects. Large institutions that have been performing the same work for decades do not fully represent the economy as a whole.
    - Spooky23 9y ago

bmay 9y ago

more qualified women in the workforce => greater efficiency, increase in net jobs created, lower prices => increased benefits for everyone

groby_b 9y ago

I'm not sure where you're seeing a "somewhat sticky # of jobs": https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-time-employees-in-the-usa-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-ti... , https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons As for "a brief search": I literally went to Google, typed "number of jobs" with the first suggestion being "number of jobs in us by year". The very first link has the answer. May I suggest that when you ask inflammatory question, you invest a tiny bit more in research? Otherwise, one could come to the conclusion that maybe you're more interested in the inflammatory than in the thought part. I'm sure that's not what you intend. But if you care about "togetherness" in political discourse, it's imperative to temper inflammatory requests with more than an absolutely cursory search for facts.

existencebox 9y ago
I was unclear with my "sticky jobs" statement; and referred primarily to the initial rate of change of women entering the workforce. I did try to look at the data for that, but while there is a spike of labor participation rate (per capita/% seems a much better metric than absolute #) during the male/female convergence in the 50's/60s as womens rights progressed, it seemed primarily externality driven. [0] That being said, I'd try and better make my main point: As a sister post states, there's the intuitive fact that remedying discrimination is by definition going to cause the previously elevated party to lose that. This is the core of what I was trying to get at; that I'm not sure "it's not a zero sum game" is going to convince people who focus on this aspect of it. Maybe there's an argument that you don't need to/can't convince someone that opposed, but that's the heart of my pessimism about the aformentioned togetherness. (Another sister post made the explanation of the lump of labor fallacy, which I had learned at one point and unfortunately forgotten as it far better responds to the hypothetical I posed) [0]https://dqydj.com/the-male-female-unemployment-gap/ https://dqydj.com/the-male-female-unemployment-gap/ (Ignoring the writing, the data is from stlousifed)
- groby_b 9y ago
  Ah, that makes much more sense, thank you. > there's the intuitive fact that remedying discrimination is by definition going to cause the previously elevated party to lose that I think it's more than an intuitive fact. There's at least one study I can think of - "Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man"[1]. And it seems to support the idea that there's a loss, at least in the short term, for the previously elevated party. I still don't think it's a zero-sum game in the long term. But that is at the core of the problem - people feel threatened now, they don't always care that in the long run, things might turn out well. Which prompted me to write my reply in the first place - anything that reinforces the notion of a zero-sum game is incredibly toxic to resolving this issue. And even if we'd all be at our most level-headed selves, it's a rather hard issue to solve. (It's worth noting that we're off on quite a tangent. None of the above really relates to sexual harassment that much. That is an abuse of power. While I'm an avowed feminist, I'm not convinced that simply having more equality in the work force will solve the issue of harassment. That likely requires a huge cultural shift to our basic mode of thinking) [1] http://perseus.iies.su.se/~tpers/papers/Draft170122AER.pdf http://perseus.iies.su.se/~tpers/papers/Draft170122AER.pdf

mannykannot 9y ago

> ...in both cases rendering a male applicant at a substantial disadvantage (comparatively to history). The reduction of inequalities tends to have this sort of effect on those who benefitted from inequality, more or less by definition. I will go along with your stated intention of wanting to provoke thought by saying that I think it is a bogus argument against equality, that ignores the unjustifiable harm done by discrimination. Furthermore, by itself, it does not establish the 'zero sum' part of 'zero sum game'. BTW, grammatically speaking, the 'it' in the question you pose appears to refer to the 'sexual harassment' of the title, but your comment seems to be about something else altogether.

avz 9y ago

> [...] sticky total # of jobs. As women further enter the workforce, the mean household income will trend towards double income, and the labor pool will be contested with more applicants, in both cases rendering a male applicant at a substantial disadvantage (comparatively to history). Isn't this the lump of labor fallacy [1]? I think the economic theory leads to a different description: As more women enter the workforce, the aggregate income goes up. Some of it is spent and becomes someone else's income. Some of it is saved in a bank which loans it out or invests it. The receiving business then spends it and once again the money becomes someone else's income. IOW, as more people work, both aggregate demand and aggregate income rise. The economy shifts into a higher gear. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Spooky23 9y ago
It seems a little sketchy to me that apparently labor is exempt from the basic laws of supply and demand. Fundamentally, enlarging the supply of workers, through the entry of women, ending systemic discrimination against minorities, elimination of early retirement while reducing demand should have an effect on the price of labor. I’ve worked for large institutions that have been performing the same work for decades and I’m familiar with their employment statistics. By any measure, they are using fewer person-hours of labor annually. About 40% less since 1997, about 60% less than 1987. One subdivision in particular replaced about 3,000 workers with 50 IT guys and about $10M in annual IT spend circa 1995. Those labor costs are held in check by a constant stream of cheap contractors.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  The basic laws of supply and demand have two sides, but you are just looking at supply. The post you are replying to contains a suggestion as to why the demand side may, at least in some circumstances, mask or compensate for supply-side effects. Large institutions that have been performing the same work for decades do not fully represent the economy as a whole.
  - Spooky23 9y ago