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If we could solve the gender pay gap for working mothers, computer programmers, machine-shop workers, and other jobs where men still earn more, we might finally

If we could solve the gender pay gap for working mothers, computer programmers, machine-shop workers, and other jobs where men still earn more, we might finally be able to celebrate equality between the sexes.

visarga 9y ago
Even so, there will be few women relative to men taking the programmer career, it's a matter of personal choice. Women have many attractive choices that compete with this one.
- magduf 9y ago
  Exactly. If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions that are more social and have better advancement potential and job security, such as medicine (doctors, surgeoons), law, finance, etc. A lot of women go into programming because it's been hyped up so much, and then either going into management quickly or leaving the industry because they hate the work and how asocial it frequently is, and also because they feel like they're not really doing anything to help the world (and in the vast majority of programming jobs, it's true, you aren't).
  - icebraining 9y ago
    If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions that are more social and have better advancement potential and job security, such as medicine (doctors, surgeoons), law, finance, etc. Why isn't this true of men?
    - gluelogic 9y ago
      What he is saying is that, generally, given the choice, women will prefer social work to asocial work.
      - sudoke 9y ago
        This is the same sexist attitude that got that google employee fired. I suggest you stay off HN and stick to TD with these ideas.
        gluelogic 9y ago
        I didn't present it as my attitude, which any careful reader would note. The person I was responding to seemed confused based on the question they asked. I don't post on Reddit and you should keep your asinine suggestions to yourself. Either you got to this website an hour ago or are you are too much of a coward to stand by your convictions and accusations.
        d0lph 9y ago
        Why is it sexist to suggest that women might prefer different careers from men?
        sudoke 9y ago
        Because suggestion that men and women in general are different is criminally sexist. It's what got us here in the first place. People(republicans) need to get it through their heads that there are NO differences between men and women, period.
        d0lph 9y ago
        Do you have any evidence for this?
    - magduf 9y ago
      It is true of many of them, and they do go into those other fields. IMO, however, there's a lot more "nerdy" personality types among men who are interested in the traits that the programming career offers, and that's why there's so many more men in the field. It is changing, however (see the "brogrammer" trend in the last decade or two), but that, if anything, is pushing women out of the field even more.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    > If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions Women get rejected from law and med school too. That doesn't explain why they don't go into software. > better advancement potential Plenty of women go into fields without much advancement potential. If your argument is that in programming often the only way to advance is management, then that's also true of the vast majority of jobs, including accountancy which attracts a lot of women. > job security Programmers have very good job security compared to a lot of people these days. In particular, doing a law degree is a massive risk given how hard it is to land a traineeship, yet plenty of women still do law degrees. > that are more social What makes you assume that all women want jobs where they can be social? And what makes you say programming isn't a social job? It requires working with other people as part of a team. There's not much interaction with customers, but that's also true of a lot of accountancy/other office jobs that have an even gender ratio. > A lot of women go into programming because it's been hyped up so much, and then either going into management quickly or leaving the industry because they hate the work That's true of both men and women in teaching. > and also because they feel like they're not really doing anything to help the world (and in the vast majority of programming jobs, it's true, you aren't). How many lawyers, accountants, personal assistants or managers are directly doing something to help the world?
    - magduf 9y ago
      You're talking about different groups of women. The women who want to help the world don't usually go into accounting or law (except maybe environmental law or criminal defense), they go into teaching, social work, etc., which generally pay poorly, or they go into medicine, where they can make very good money (probably better than programming) and directly save peoples' lives too. The women who want to make money go into law, accounting, and medicine (some overlap here with the help-the-world group obviously). >What makes you assume that all women want jobs where they can be social? This has been shown by research. Women are trained from an early age to be more social than men. >And what makes you say programming isn't a social job? It requires working with other people as part of a team. I don't think I need to justify myself here. Most programming involves sitting at a computer and typing, and not in a group in real-time. It also certainly has a reputation for being asocial, though that's changed more recently with the "brogrammer" trend, but not for the better as far as women are concerned. It sure as hell isn't social the way medicine is, where the work is all about meeting one-on-one with patients all day long and working hands-on (usually literally) with them. >Women get rejected from law and med school too. That doesn't explain why they don't go into software. Well, for the med school rejects, I can't imagine what programming would offer them. They obviously want 1) a high-paying career, 2) to help people hands-on, 3) a social job. Programming might offer 1, and that's it. Women like this will probably fall back to nursing school, or maybe some other career that's more social and less technical than programming. Really, the only good point you bring up here is that a lot of women go into accounting, since that does indeed seem to have a lot of overlap in career traits with programming.
adrianN 9y ago
The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. Maybe that can simply be explained by different behavior between men and women and is not evidence for discrimination. For example male Uber drivers earn 7% more than female drivers even though the algorithm doesn't distinguish by sex [1]. Should we force Uber to pay women 7% more to adjust for this fact? [1] https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf
- rectang 9y ago
  > The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. This suggests where the best opportunities for improvement lie: equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably), decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave), and so on.
  - magduf 9y ago
    >equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably) If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? Also, offering this is one thing, but getting parents to use it is quite another. Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. How would you fix that? >decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave) This decoupling is a good idea for many reasons, but I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work, it just covers their medical bills. Most of that paid time is just parents staying at home with their new kid.
    - rectang 9y ago
      > If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? The Clinton-era FMLA grants 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. 25 states expand on that, and 25 do not. > Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. Some will take it. If utilization rates are not equal, that's not a reason to withhold the opportunity. > I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work The FMLA only provides for unpaid leave. However, businesses continue to pay for health insurance during the leave period.
zingmars 9y ago
Do you have actual documentation proving that men in these fields earn more than their female peers in same job function working the same hours?
- JPGalt 9y ago
  Even if she did, it means nothing. The only way to assess equality is to undertake a complete multiple variable analysis of the topic. Isn't it funny how quickly we throw out the basics of the scientific method when the results are inconvenient or do not conform to the world view we are trying to subscribe to? I am not saying you are doing that just making the observation that it is clearly what is going on when this topic is "researched". It is intellectually dishonest to cherry pick the variables that suit the answer the researcher already prescribed before the analysis even began. The entire premise of these studies is laughable until they are done and published correctly. It is not and should not be acceptable to be dishonest in this way though science has began to allow it more and more in order to not be called names...
spodek 9y ago
There are many issues contributing to different pay. These videos of Warren Farrell address many of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb89YALUzL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb89YALUzL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxtu5ZyA048 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxtu5ZyA048 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEOXePU_Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEOXePU_Uo

visarga 9y ago

Even so, there will be few women relative to men taking the programmer career, it's a matter of personal choice. Women have many attractive choices that compete with this one.

magduf 9y ago
Exactly. If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions that are more social and have better advancement potential and job security, such as medicine (doctors, surgeoons), law, finance, etc. A lot of women go into programming because it's been hyped up so much, and then either going into management quickly or leaving the industry because they hate the work and how asocial it frequently is, and also because they feel like they're not really doing anything to help the world (and in the vast majority of programming jobs, it's true, you aren't).
- icebraining 9y ago
  If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions that are more social and have better advancement potential and job security, such as medicine (doctors, surgeoons), law, finance, etc. Why isn't this true of men?
  - gluelogic 9y ago
    What he is saying is that, generally, given the choice, women will prefer social work to asocial work.
    - sudoke 9y ago
      This is the same sexist attitude that got that google employee fired. I suggest you stay off HN and stick to TD with these ideas.
      - gluelogic 9y ago
        I didn't present it as my attitude, which any careful reader would note. The person I was responding to seemed confused based on the question they asked. I don't post on Reddit and you should keep your asinine suggestions to yourself. Either you got to this website an hour ago or are you are too much of a coward to stand by your convictions and accusations.
      - d0lph 9y ago
        Why is it sexist to suggest that women might prefer different careers from men?
        sudoke 9y ago
        Because suggestion that men and women in general are different is criminally sexist. It's what got us here in the first place. People(republicans) need to get it through their heads that there are NO differences between men and women, period.
        d0lph 9y ago
        Do you have any evidence for this?
  - magduf 9y ago
    It is true of many of them, and they do go into those other fields. IMO, however, there's a lot more "nerdy" personality types among men who are interested in the traits that the programming career offers, and that's why there's so many more men in the field. It is changing, however (see the "brogrammer" trend in the last decade or two), but that, if anything, is pushing women out of the field even more.
- nsgi 9y ago
  > If a woman is smart enough to be a programmer, she's smart enough for other lucrative professions Women get rejected from law and med school too. That doesn't explain why they don't go into software. > better advancement potential Plenty of women go into fields without much advancement potential. If your argument is that in programming often the only way to advance is management, then that's also true of the vast majority of jobs, including accountancy which attracts a lot of women. > job security Programmers have very good job security compared to a lot of people these days. In particular, doing a law degree is a massive risk given how hard it is to land a traineeship, yet plenty of women still do law degrees. > that are more social What makes you assume that all women want jobs where they can be social? And what makes you say programming isn't a social job? It requires working with other people as part of a team. There's not much interaction with customers, but that's also true of a lot of accountancy/other office jobs that have an even gender ratio. > A lot of women go into programming because it's been hyped up so much, and then either going into management quickly or leaving the industry because they hate the work That's true of both men and women in teaching. > and also because they feel like they're not really doing anything to help the world (and in the vast majority of programming jobs, it's true, you aren't). How many lawyers, accountants, personal assistants or managers are directly doing something to help the world?
  - magduf 9y ago
    You're talking about different groups of women. The women who want to help the world don't usually go into accounting or law (except maybe environmental law or criminal defense), they go into teaching, social work, etc., which generally pay poorly, or they go into medicine, where they can make very good money (probably better than programming) and directly save peoples' lives too. The women who want to make money go into law, accounting, and medicine (some overlap here with the help-the-world group obviously). >What makes you assume that all women want jobs where they can be social? This has been shown by research. Women are trained from an early age to be more social than men. >And what makes you say programming isn't a social job? It requires working with other people as part of a team. I don't think I need to justify myself here. Most programming involves sitting at a computer and typing, and not in a group in real-time. It also certainly has a reputation for being asocial, though that's changed more recently with the "brogrammer" trend, but not for the better as far as women are concerned. It sure as hell isn't social the way medicine is, where the work is all about meeting one-on-one with patients all day long and working hands-on (usually literally) with them. >Women get rejected from law and med school too. That doesn't explain why they don't go into software. Well, for the med school rejects, I can't imagine what programming would offer them. They obviously want 1) a high-paying career, 2) to help people hands-on, 3) a social job. Programming might offer 1, and that's it. Women like this will probably fall back to nursing school, or maybe some other career that's more social and less technical than programming. Really, the only good point you bring up here is that a lot of women go into accounting, since that does indeed seem to have a lot of overlap in career traits with programming.

adrianN 9y ago

The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. Maybe that can simply be explained by different behavior between men and women and is not evidence for discrimination. For example male Uber drivers earn 7% more than female drivers even though the algorithm doesn't distinguish by sex [1]. Should we force Uber to pay women 7% more to adjust for this fact? [1] https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf

rectang 9y ago
> The adjusted gender pay gap is only a couple of percent. This suggests where the best opportunities for improvement lie: equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably), decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave), and so on.
- magduf 9y ago
  >equalizing parental leave (so that the parental career penalty is distributed more equitably) If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? Also, offering this is one thing, but getting parents to use it is quite another. Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. How would you fix that? >decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave) This decoupling is a good idea for many reasons, but I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work, it just covers their medical bills. Most of that paid time is just parents staying at home with their new kid.
  - rectang 9y ago
    > If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? The Clinton-era FMLA grants 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. 25 states expand on that, and 25 do not. > Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. Some will take it. If utilization rates are not equal, that's not a reason to withhold the opportunity. > I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work The FMLA only provides for unpaid leave. However, businesses continue to pay for health insurance during the leave period.

zingmars 9y ago

Do you have actual documentation proving that men in these fields earn more than their female peers in same job function working the same hours?

JPGalt 9y ago
Even if she did, it means nothing. The only way to assess equality is to undertake a complete multiple variable analysis of the topic. Isn't it funny how quickly we throw out the basics of the scientific method when the results are inconvenient or do not conform to the world view we are trying to subscribe to? I am not saying you are doing that just making the observation that it is clearly what is going on when this topic is "researched". It is intellectually dishonest to cherry pick the variables that suit the answer the researcher already prescribed before the analysis even began. The entire premise of these studies is laughable until they are done and published correctly. It is not and should not be acceptable to be dishonest in this way though science has began to allow it more and more in order to not be called names...

spodek 9y ago

There are many issues contributing to different pay. These videos of Warren Farrell address many of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb89YALUzL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb89YALUzL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxtu5ZyA048 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxtu5ZyA048 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEOXePU_Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzEOXePU_Uo