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Wild speculation follows: So there could be two kinds of employers each competing in their own pool: one pool that believes gender (directly or indirectly) is a

Wild speculation follows: So there could be two kinds of employers each competing in their own pool: one pool that believes gender (directly or indirectly) is a significant factor, and the other that does not think it is a significant factor to job performance. Because pool 1 believes that gender is not a significant factor, they know that wage discrimination on the basis of that factor would be illegal and open them up to lawsuits. Pool 2 does think gender is significant, maybe indirectly laundered through other things like personality assessments, and they therefore think they can and should act on that information. Critically it doesn’t matter if the sexist pool is openly sexist or using factors more strongly correlated with sex than job performance (like whether or not the employee looks the mental model of the part). The result is the same, they believe they are justified in paying women less. The arbitrage opportunity would never occur to them because they don’t think the labour is worth more. But if you see the arbitrage opportunity, that puts you in Pool 1 by definition. And so those who are aware of the opportunity know that it would be illegal since the gender isn’t relevant to their position.

BeeOnRope 8y ago
The group 1 group, which wishes to hire more women to "exploit" this gap, doesn't have to engage in wage discrimination though, do they? They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women. If they did hire any men, they just need to ensure they are paid the same as their existing workforce. So you don't need to engage in wage discrimination to hire women, since that is evaluated within a company, not in relation to a sector has a whole. That is, if McDonald's pays all their employees $10 an hour and they are mostly women, and Burger King pays all their employees $15 an hour for approximately the same work and they are mostly men, I don't think there is any (legal) claim for discrimination?
- mattnewton 8y ago
  No, group 2 must be doing wage discrimination per the definition: they are paying women less solely because of their gender, that’s the only way the arbitrage works. If they set wages at $10/hr hoping to capture all the women turned away, they will also fail to capture male employees worth $15/hr. That puts them in the same pool as Burger King. There isn’t an arbitrage opportunity based on gender here. Assuming that Mcdonald’s and Burger King are the only employers, this also doesn’t get rid of the pricing gap. Women are paid less on average because they are turned away from the higher paying Burger King disproportionately. Burger King thinks what they are doing is not discrimination. Mcdonald’s must also think what they are doing is not discrimination, or they have a vast conspiracy to violate the law. They are both Group 2 companies.
  - BeeOnRope 8y ago
    I made everything much more confusing by making a typo in my first sentence. I meant to refer to group 1 (it's corrected now). I agree that group 2 exhibits wage discrimination. It was group 1 one or a variant thereof that I meant to discuss: this group presumably values women equally to men [1], hence wants to exploit the wage gap as the GP suggested by hiring mostly women and hence getting ~30% more for their hiring dollars. You proposed that this group would be knowingly paying women less, therefore acting both unethically (depending on your ethical view of the matter, anyway) and opening themselves up to legal liability. I'm saying that this group can just offer positions close to the lower going rate for women: this would presumably result in them hiring mostly women (and some men due to variance, etc). As long as all hiring and wage decisions are gender-blind however, they would not be discriminating - they are only "passively" taking advantage of the gap via their range of salary offers. --- [1] I.e., to them the wage gap is not logical hence women are being underpaid.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women. Not just that. That company would also need to offer more workplace flexibility, if we are to believe the study.
nearbuy 8y ago
It seems like if you were in group 1, you'd be offering women salaries above their normal discriminatory market rate, which should lead to more female applicants and more female hires.

BeeOnRope 8y ago

The group 1 group, which wishes to hire more women to "exploit" this gap, doesn't have to engage in wage discrimination though, do they? They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women. If they did hire any men, they just need to ensure they are paid the same as their existing workforce. So you don't need to engage in wage discrimination to hire women, since that is evaluated within a company, not in relation to a sector has a whole. That is, if McDonald's pays all their employees $10 an hour and they are mostly women, and Burger King pays all their employees $15 an hour for approximately the same work and they are mostly men, I don't think there is any (legal) claim for discrimination?

mattnewton 8y ago
No, group 2 must be doing wage discrimination per the definition: they are paying women less solely because of their gender, that’s the only way the arbitrage works. If they set wages at $10/hr hoping to capture all the women turned away, they will also fail to capture male employees worth $15/hr. That puts them in the same pool as Burger King. There isn’t an arbitrage opportunity based on gender here. Assuming that Mcdonald’s and Burger King are the only employers, this also doesn’t get rid of the pricing gap. Women are paid less on average because they are turned away from the higher paying Burger King disproportionately. Burger King thinks what they are doing is not discrimination. Mcdonald’s must also think what they are doing is not discrimination, or they have a vast conspiracy to violate the law. They are both Group 2 companies.
- BeeOnRope 8y ago
  I made everything much more confusing by making a typo in my first sentence. I meant to refer to group 1 (it's corrected now). I agree that group 2 exhibits wage discrimination. It was group 1 one or a variant thereof that I meant to discuss: this group presumably values women equally to men [1], hence wants to exploit the wage gap as the GP suggested by hiring mostly women and hence getting ~30% more for their hiring dollars. You proposed that this group would be knowingly paying women less, therefore acting both unethically (depending on your ethical view of the matter, anyway) and opening themselves up to legal liability. I'm saying that this group can just offer positions close to the lower going rate for women: this would presumably result in them hiring mostly women (and some men due to variance, etc). As long as all hiring and wage decisions are gender-blind however, they would not be discriminating - they are only "passively" taking advantage of the gap via their range of salary offers. --- [1] I.e., to them the wage gap is not logical hence women are being underpaid.
stcredzero 8y ago
They just have to hire at the "going rate" for women, which to the extent that a wage gap exists means they would be hiring mostly women. Not just that. That company would also need to offer more workplace flexibility, if we are to believe the study.

nearbuy 8y ago

It seems like if you were in group 1, you'd be offering women salaries above their normal discriminatory market rate, which should lead to more female applicants and more female hires.