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The incorrect assumption is an implicit one: the fungibility of workers. Your argument would work (-ish) if you were arguing against pay inequality. And, in fa

The incorrect assumption is an implicit one: the fungibility of workers. Your argument would work (-ish) if you were arguing against pay inequality. And, in fact, pay inequality is usually a lot lower than the pay gap. But for many large organisations, the pay gap is due to women being more likely to be in lower paid roles while men are more likely to be in higher paid roles. Replacing men with women and vice versa would reduce the pay gap but wouldn't dent the overall wage bill significantly.

fastball 8y ago
You can't just "replace men with women" though, as it's not clear that the reason men are in higher paid positions is because of discrimination. For example, men on average work longer hours than women, which obviously contributes to the pay gap. Men also take less vacation than women, which generally makes them "more reliable". If I have two SysOps people, and they have the same skill level, I'm probably going to promote the one that took less vacation time. The priority should be in curbing the behavior of men who are overzealous in their work to the detriment of their own health. That would probably bring down the pay gap significantly.
- lucozade 8y ago
  > You can't just "replace men with women" though Indeed. I was just pointing out why the argument was broken. The lack of symmetry in the workforce would also mean that that's not a way to reduce the pay gap even without the assumption of a reducing wage bill. > Men also take less vacation than women Are you sure? Men are statistically likely to take more of their vacation time (in the US at least) than women. If you are correct that implies that men get more vacation time than women but I'm not sure that that's correct.
  - belorn 8y ago
    Taking the first hit on google, men work 42 min more per day when taking into consideration aspects like vacation and sick days. Every second week that almost translate to an whole additional day in difference. "among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked more per day than women—8.4 hours, compared with 7.9 hours. (See table 4.)" https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf The questions we should ask our self is what are the incentives. How does wages, promotions, social status, health, happiness, children and social support look for men who is in the 50% that work longest vs those men who are in the 50% fewest hours at work. Then we do the same question for women.
    - rhacker 8y ago
      Yes, but about 3 hours of each day that man is reading HN, so I think they're actually working less time. I think they might be posturing longer hours maybe?

fastball 8y ago

You can't just "replace men with women" though, as it's not clear that the reason men are in higher paid positions is because of discrimination. For example, men on average work longer hours than women, which obviously contributes to the pay gap. Men also take less vacation than women, which generally makes them "more reliable". If I have two SysOps people, and they have the same skill level, I'm probably going to promote the one that took less vacation time. The priority should be in curbing the behavior of men who are overzealous in their work to the detriment of their own health. That would probably bring down the pay gap significantly.

lucozade 8y ago
> You can't just "replace men with women" though Indeed. I was just pointing out why the argument was broken. The lack of symmetry in the workforce would also mean that that's not a way to reduce the pay gap even without the assumption of a reducing wage bill. > Men also take less vacation than women Are you sure? Men are statistically likely to take more of their vacation time (in the US at least) than women. If you are correct that implies that men get more vacation time than women but I'm not sure that that's correct.
- belorn 8y ago
  Taking the first hit on google, men work 42 min more per day when taking into consideration aspects like vacation and sick days. Every second week that almost translate to an whole additional day in difference. "among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked more per day than women—8.4 hours, compared with 7.9 hours. (See table 4.)" https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf The questions we should ask our self is what are the incentives. How does wages, promotions, social status, health, happiness, children and social support look for men who is in the 50% that work longest vs those men who are in the 50% fewest hours at work. Then we do the same question for women.
  - rhacker 8y ago
    Yes, but about 3 hours of each day that man is reading HN, so I think they're actually working less time. I think they might be posturing longer hours maybe?