5 ms·

I love the irony of this. Accused of underpaying women - their reaction is "let us get some data". Nope. underpaying men. This is the way you do things. You col

I love the irony of this. Accused of underpaying women - their reaction is "let us get some data". Nope. underpaying men. This is the way you do things. You collect the data, analyze and react. Wash rinse repeat.

xienze 8y ago
A similar thing has happened with companies that go to great lengths to make sure they don't have any gender bias in their hiring process (no face-to-face during interviews, voice altering during phone interviews, etc.) only to find that they still selected more men than women. The conclusion, of course, is that they must be doing something wrong because it's simply impossible that they wouldn't be selecting a perfect 50/50 mix of men and women. Similarly, I think imagine Google will find similar flaws with how these numbers were generated.
- myrandomcomment 8y ago
  Well it depends on the field. What is the ratio of male to female CS graduates? A quick check seems to say that in 2015 is was only 15% female.
  - billfruit 8y ago
    That figure is almost reversed in many third world countries. In my CS undergrad, there were 40 women and 20 men.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  It's extremely difficult to actually hide all signs of gender, even with the measures you mentioned. Even simple things like the way a job advertisement or a resume is worded can suggest the genders of the people involved in a statistically predictable way. For example: http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gaucher-Friesen-Kay-JPSP-Gendered-Wording-in-Job-ads.pdf http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gauch...
sokoloff 8y ago
Given that Google's workforce is 69% men, it's quite possible that they found 3 men underpaid for every 2 women who were underpaid (60%/40%), which would mean they gave more men than women salary equity adjustments while still having a bias in the direction of the original complaint.
- oarabbus_ 8y ago
  It's not a contest of who is more underpaid. This would indicate that Google systematically underpays, regardless of gender. THAT is the real issue here.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    How likely is it possible for Google to systematically underpay? People voluntarily take positions there (and in fact, compete to get hired there).
    - oarabbus_ 8y ago
      >People voluntarily take positions there (and in fact, compete to get hired there). I would say this makes it more likely for people to be underpaid, especially when factoring in hours worked. See SpaceX for another example.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        Lots of people want to work in game development. Lots of people do. Some people say game devs are underpaid. I tend to think that they're paid what they agreed to accept and that is based in large part on market forces (supply and demand, value over replacement, etc.). I also left game development because it wasn't for me long-term. (I was underpaid relative to what I could make in another industry, but I wasn't underpaid by my game-dev company. They quickly hired a replacement for me, I'm sure.) A company like Google, paying substantially over minimum wage, is probably not underpaying most employees systematically, almost by definition IMO.

xienze 8y ago

A similar thing has happened with companies that go to great lengths to make sure they don't have any gender bias in their hiring process (no face-to-face during interviews, voice altering during phone interviews, etc.) only to find that they still selected more men than women. The conclusion, of course, is that they must be doing something wrong because it's simply impossible that they wouldn't be selecting a perfect 50/50 mix of men and women. Similarly, I think imagine Google will find similar flaws with how these numbers were generated.

myrandomcomment 8y ago
Well it depends on the field. What is the ratio of male to female CS graduates? A quick check seems to say that in 2015 is was only 15% female.
- billfruit 8y ago
  That figure is almost reversed in many third world countries. In my CS undergrad, there were 40 women and 20 men.
crooked-v 8y ago
It's extremely difficult to actually hide all signs of gender, even with the measures you mentioned. Even simple things like the way a job advertisement or a resume is worded can suggest the genders of the people involved in a statistically predictable way. For example: http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gaucher-Friesen-Kay-JPSP-Gendered-Wording-in-Job-ads.pdf http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gauch...

sokoloff 8y ago

Given that Google's workforce is 69% men, it's quite possible that they found 3 men underpaid for every 2 women who were underpaid (60%/40%), which would mean they gave more men than women salary equity adjustments while still having a bias in the direction of the original complaint.

oarabbus_ 8y ago
It's not a contest of who is more underpaid. This would indicate that Google systematically underpays, regardless of gender. THAT is the real issue here.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  How likely is it possible for Google to systematically underpay? People voluntarily take positions there (and in fact, compete to get hired there).
  - oarabbus_ 8y ago
    >People voluntarily take positions there (and in fact, compete to get hired there). I would say this makes it more likely for people to be underpaid, especially when factoring in hours worked. See SpaceX for another example.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      Lots of people want to work in game development. Lots of people do. Some people say game devs are underpaid. I tend to think that they're paid what they agreed to accept and that is based in large part on market forces (supply and demand, value over replacement, etc.). I also left game development because it wasn't for me long-term. (I was underpaid relative to what I could make in another industry, but I wasn't underpaid by my game-dev company. They quickly hired a replacement for me, I'm sure.) A company like Google, paying substantially over minimum wage, is probably not underpaying most employees systematically, almost by definition IMO.