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The discussion around the content of the article here is interesting, but the thing that stuck out to me the most was this quote: “No amount of grifting or end

The discussion around the content of the article here is interesting, but the thing that stuck out to me the most was this quote: “No amount of grifting or endless working” will help alleviate the gender pay gap, which, according to the World Economic Forum, won’t close for another 200 years I read on here all the time that the “gender pay gap” doesn’t exist. So which one is it?

rukittenme 8y ago
If you find yourself questioning reality after every opinion you read you should really form your own opinion. Take the time to read the arguments present by both sides.
jldugger 8y ago
I see it as there being two kinds of gender pay gaps. The first one is the gap between comparable men and women in the same job at the same employer. You might call this gender bias, since the only discriminate factor here is gender. This is generally a small gap, though this is not true for all job titles. And it's pretty rare to find the gap disfavor men, so we should probably investigate why this emerges. The second one is the wide chasm between what men make on average and what women make. If you find it confusing why these two are different, consider nurses vs doctors. These two jobs vary by pay and gender balance, and for this combined population women make less money on average. This is something we probably want to be concerned about as a society, but likely cannot solve it with enforcement of existing laws as it has myriad factors like degree selection, gender role norms, employer selection, time in workforce, labor participation by age, overtime availability, and everything in the first category. I call this systemic bias, because there's not one bad actor we need to punish here. Rather, it emerges as the a rational equilibrium, in response to societal level pressures -- not all of which are rational themselves. This is the sphere where we cross our fingers that maybe Computer Engineer Barbie will adjust things a percentage point while we search for the hundred other, much harder things we need to do to unbias society. So, re: "grifting or endless working." Not a prescription for solving systemic gender bias. Getting up early for your teaching job or working more hours as a nurse won't solve the fact that you're not an engineer or surgeon. A few dozen more women in VC funded executive positions won't move the needle either. But in general, you should probably take what folks on HN say with a grain of salt.
- kungtotte 8y ago
  Other things that influence the gender pay gap is that women are typically the ones to stay at home to raise children or work part time, they're the ones to stay home from work to tend to sick children, etc. which lowers their average pay.
joppy 8y ago
The “gender pay gap” absolutely does exist, look up any results from any census ever. Even the myriad ways of “explaining it away” which you can find on the Wikipedia page [1] cannot fully account for the gap (regardless of whether these explanations are valid/fair/equitable or not). Where exactly are you reading that the gender pay gap does not exist? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_S...

rukittenme 8y ago

If you find yourself questioning reality after every opinion you read you should really form your own opinion. Take the time to read the arguments present by both sides.

jldugger 8y ago

I see it as there being two kinds of gender pay gaps. The first one is the gap between comparable men and women in the same job at the same employer. You might call this gender bias, since the only discriminate factor here is gender. This is generally a small gap, though this is not true for all job titles. And it's pretty rare to find the gap disfavor men, so we should probably investigate why this emerges. The second one is the wide chasm between what men make on average and what women make. If you find it confusing why these two are different, consider nurses vs doctors. These two jobs vary by pay and gender balance, and for this combined population women make less money on average. This is something we probably want to be concerned about as a society, but likely cannot solve it with enforcement of existing laws as it has myriad factors like degree selection, gender role norms, employer selection, time in workforce, labor participation by age, overtime availability, and everything in the first category. I call this systemic bias, because there's not one bad actor we need to punish here. Rather, it emerges as the a rational equilibrium, in response to societal level pressures -- not all of which are rational themselves. This is the sphere where we cross our fingers that maybe Computer Engineer Barbie will adjust things a percentage point while we search for the hundred other, much harder things we need to do to unbias society. So, re: "grifting or endless working." Not a prescription for solving systemic gender bias. Getting up early for your teaching job or working more hours as a nurse won't solve the fact that you're not an engineer or surgeon. A few dozen more women in VC funded executive positions won't move the needle either. But in general, you should probably take what folks on HN say with a grain of salt.

kungtotte 8y ago
Other things that influence the gender pay gap is that women are typically the ones to stay at home to raise children or work part time, they're the ones to stay home from work to tend to sick children, etc. which lowers their average pay.

joppy 8y ago

The “gender pay gap” absolutely does exist, look up any results from any census ever. Even the myriad ways of “explaining it away” which you can find on the Wikipedia page [1] cannot fully account for the gap (regardless of whether these explanations are valid/fair/equitable or not). Where exactly are you reading that the gender pay gap does not exist? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap_in_the_United_S...