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Conclusions that the companies hired more women because of it are a bit weird to draw since every company that would be a comparison in the country also has to

Conclusions that the companies hired more women because of it are a bit weird to draw since every company that would be a comparison in the country also has to follow the same rules? And ofc it's solved by lowering the growth of male wages :D Business

fastball 8y ago
No, they were comparing companies that didn't need to follow the regulation (companies with 24-34 employees) with companies that did (35+ employees). Of course, the problem with this is twofold: 1. Companies with <35 employees is a tiny slice of the population and should generally not be expected to follow normal population distributions. 2. Companies with <35 employees are already behaving differently than larger companies with >35 employees. I do not think that variable was accounted for in any way by the study and that is problematic.
- hayksaakian 8y ago
  Over 80% of all companies in the USA have fewer than 35 employees https://www.naics.com/business-lists/counts-by-company-size/ https://www.naics.com/business-lists/counts-by-company-size/ i agree with your point #2 the differences between large and small companies are significant enough to outweigh the causal relationship that the OP implies
  - bsanr 8y ago
    I think he was referring to the relative number of workers at companies with more/less than 35 employees. Clearly the average worker, by a large margin, works at companies with 50 or more employees. Even more so when you don't include whatever proportion of businesses counted that are essentially self-employment.
- iguy 8y ago
  And, from skimming the paper, they have literally divided companies into two groups, <35 and >35. It could be that one giant employer (like a hospital system) is the whole story. A more subtle study would be to look for a discontinuity: expect that firms with 10, 30, 100, 1000 employees will behave differently, but anything which happens sharply at 35 (and changes in this time) can be more confidently attributed to the law. But this is obviously harder to do.

fastball 8y ago

No, they were comparing companies that didn't need to follow the regulation (companies with 24-34 employees) with companies that did (35+ employees). Of course, the problem with this is twofold: 1. Companies with <35 employees is a tiny slice of the population and should generally not be expected to follow normal population distributions. 2. Companies with <35 employees are already behaving differently than larger companies with >35 employees. I do not think that variable was accounted for in any way by the study and that is problematic.

hayksaakian 8y ago
Over 80% of all companies in the USA have fewer than 35 employees https://www.naics.com/business-lists/counts-by-company-size/ https://www.naics.com/business-lists/counts-by-company-size/ i agree with your point #2 the differences between large and small companies are significant enough to outweigh the causal relationship that the OP implies
- bsanr 8y ago
  I think he was referring to the relative number of workers at companies with more/less than 35 employees. Clearly the average worker, by a large margin, works at companies with 50 or more employees. Even more so when you don't include whatever proportion of businesses counted that are essentially self-employment.
iguy 8y ago
And, from skimming the paper, they have literally divided companies into two groups, <35 and >35. It could be that one giant employer (like a hospital system) is the whole story. A more subtle study would be to look for a discontinuity: expect that firms with 10, 30, 100, 1000 employees will behave differently, but anything which happens sharply at 35 (and changes in this time) can be more confidently attributed to the law. But this is obviously harder to do.