4 ms·

Wow the gender ratio is 1 male to 50 women for teachers! This would be a great chance for google to show the world how its done on equality, and have a google

by MollyR 9y ago

Wow the gender ratio is 1 male to 50 women for teachers! This would be a great chance for google to show the world how its done on equality, and have a google branded push for more males in teaching and more women in tech. It would definitely show the critics of hiring more women in technology, that it really is about equality.

jdoliner 9y ago
> It would definitely show the critics of hiring more women in technology, that it really is about equality. Given that they haven't done this does that mean that critics of hiring more women in tech are right in their conclusion that it isn't about equality?
- MollyR 9y ago
  I don't think so, because Google is primarily a tech company not a teaching company. However I'd be disappointed in Google if they didn't try to even out the gender ratio of the teachers and hire some more males as well. I can understand it would look like hypocrisy to some.
  - goliatone 9y ago
    Im actually wondering if Google was using the number of employed female teachers to increase their overall male/female ratio... it seems like a 50/1 ratio has to have an explanation behind rather than pure chance
    - MollyR 9y ago
      It looks like that's a somewhat normal ratio for pre-k teaching. The percentage goes up for male teachers as kids age for some reason. http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers
T2_t2 9y ago
This will not be corrected. In an article about a position in which 1 in 50 employees is a man, the article includes the line "Across Google, women make up only 31% of employees." There are many, many tech jobs where almost all the qualified people are men (think high end security, really low level packet optimisation stuff, pretty much any extreme fringe skill). That means to address the 31% figure company wide, tech giants need to fiddle with the numbers in jobs where it is not mission critical, e.g. you can't get to 50% in security, but you can make sure that 100% of the cleaners are women. Of course, this discriminates against under-skilled men and massively exacerbates the gender pay disparity internally, but that is impossible to fix company wide whilst being defendable on a department by department basis (e.g. employees of position X irrespective of gender are paid equally), whereas the company wide ratio is fixable. Here are some examples of measures that could fix the 31% company wide figure quoted, without touching pay disparity: 1. Hirings in non-essential roles are to approach 100% female - think cleaners, admin staff, low level accountants. 2. Hiring in roles that support the essential roles are to approach 75% female - I'm thinking here of CFO support staff, account managers, project managers, anyone who supports people writing code. Why 75%? Because there will be some really good men that you can't afford to lose. 3. If a role is non-essential but predominantly male to the point an all female hiring policy is tough, just hypothetically here think garbage collection, outsource to another company. This removes these men form the headcount. 4. If a role is outsourced but could be 100% female hires, pre-school teachers is a great example, insource it. 5. Find ways to move more men from employee to contractor. This is a double win because while it massively inflates the unfixable wage disparity in real terms, i.e. what men are women are actually paid, it really changes the wage disparity on paper, while also fixing the 31% figure. 6. Create new divisions in separate entities whose numbers are not counted against Google employee numbers. Contractors on steroids. I predict we will see big tech companies utilise some or all of these measures. Last point on this, there are lots of ways to fix the wage disparity ON PAPER while making things in reality worse, and I fear these are coming as well. Most involve finding ways to better disguise male compensation - by changing it from salary to something else. More options, payments for extraneous things as a non-salary allowance (rent compensation, massive relocation fees, education allowances), pay higher bonus to salary percentages. That will be then end game here, sadly.

by MollyR 9y ago

jdoliner 9y ago

> It would definitely show the critics of hiring more women in technology, that it really is about equality. Given that they haven't done this does that mean that critics of hiring more women in tech are right in their conclusion that it isn't about equality?

MollyR 9y ago
I don't think so, because Google is primarily a tech company not a teaching company. However I'd be disappointed in Google if they didn't try to even out the gender ratio of the teachers and hire some more males as well. I can understand it would look like hypocrisy to some.
- goliatone 9y ago
  Im actually wondering if Google was using the number of employed female teachers to increase their overall male/female ratio... it seems like a 50/1 ratio has to have an explanation behind rather than pure chance
  - MollyR 9y ago
    It looks like that's a somewhat normal ratio for pre-k teaching. The percentage goes up for male teachers as kids age for some reason. http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers

T2_t2 9y ago

This will not be corrected. In an article about a position in which 1 in 50 employees is a man, the article includes the line "Across Google, women make up only 31% of employees." There are many, many tech jobs where almost all the qualified people are men (think high end security, really low level packet optimisation stuff, pretty much any extreme fringe skill). That means to address the 31% figure company wide, tech giants need to fiddle with the numbers in jobs where it is not mission critical, e.g. you can't get to 50% in security, but you can make sure that 100% of the cleaners are women. Of course, this discriminates against under-skilled men and massively exacerbates the gender pay disparity internally, but that is impossible to fix company wide whilst being defendable on a department by department basis (e.g. employees of position X irrespective of gender are paid equally), whereas the company wide ratio is fixable. Here are some examples of measures that could fix the 31% company wide figure quoted, without touching pay disparity: 1. Hirings in non-essential roles are to approach 100% female - think cleaners, admin staff, low level accountants. 2. Hiring in roles that support the essential roles are to approach 75% female - I'm thinking here of CFO support staff, account managers, project managers, anyone who supports people writing code. Why 75%? Because there will be some really good men that you can't afford to lose. 3. If a role is non-essential but predominantly male to the point an all female hiring policy is tough, just hypothetically here think garbage collection, outsource to another company. This removes these men form the headcount. 4. If a role is outsourced but could be 100% female hires, pre-school teachers is a great example, insource it. 5. Find ways to move more men from employee to contractor. This is a double win because while it massively inflates the unfixable wage disparity in real terms, i.e. what men are women are actually paid, it really changes the wage disparity on paper, while also fixing the 31% figure. 6. Create new divisions in separate entities whose numbers are not counted against Google employee numbers. Contractors on steroids. I predict we will see big tech companies utilise some or all of these measures. Last point on this, there are lots of ways to fix the wage disparity ON PAPER while making things in reality worse, and I fear these are coming as well. Most involve finding ways to better disguise male compensation - by changing it from salary to something else. More options, payments for extraneous things as a non-salary allowance (rent compensation, massive relocation fees, education allowances), pay higher bonus to salary percentages. That will be then end game here, sadly.