4 ms·

> The countries with the highest wage gaps are the countries with the most equality in the workplace. Yeah, I am not sure what to think of the data. It's not w

by rdtsc 8y ago

> The countries with the highest wage gaps are the countries with the most equality in the workplace. Yeah, I am not sure what to think of the data. It's not what I would expect. How is US, Canada, Austria having such a large gender wage gap, followed by Canada. Then Greece, Bulgaria and Romania are all the way on the left. Having lived in Eastern Europe, I would not consider it overall a bastion of women's equality and rights, not according to the West European standards at least. Granted though, during the Soviet times women and girls were studying math and science just as well as the boys even if not better and it was never specifically promoted or pushed via a "women in STEM" or such similar programs I have seen here, it just happened. Perhaps there is a remnant of that mentality and maybe there is something to be learned from there.

Gpetrium 8y ago
I think it is worth noting that the quality of the data can vary a lot from country to country. On average, governments in countries such as Germany and Norway tend to be more critical and transparent of their own actions while others may try to swipe the issue under the rug of inflate numbers when they deem appropriate. Of course, it doesn't mean there are no truths to the data, it just needs to be taken with a grain of salt even if it is the OECD.
- rdtsc 8y ago
  > On average, governments in countries such as Germany and Norway tend to be more critical and transparent of their own actions while others may try to swipe the issue under the rug of inflate numbers when they deem appropriate. Great point. Yeah I can see that happening.
sleepysysadmin 8y ago
The explanation is simple. When you provide women the opportunity to become anything they want. They choose the careers that they choose. Which tend to me more social related careers. Teaching or nursing for example does not scale well; therefore salaries are limited. Whereas men pick more "stuff" categories. It's men who work in STEM creating things. A car or an iphone is going to be generally speaking men who design it. These scale very well and salaries can be larger. By these modern approaches that allow women to go into whatever they want to do. This is what creates the gender wage gap.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  The 'people just choosing different careers' throws a lot of inequality under a rug and calls the problem solved. 1) If we tell women their whole childhood that some jobs are for men and some are for women and vice versa for men then ask them when they turn 18 what job they want we'll get horrendously unequal outcomes even though people are completely free to choose. 2) Valuation of jobs is based partially on the view of the value of the work in addition to the actual value provided. e.g. there's huge amount of societal gain to be reaped by providing better education to our children but various forces keeps the wages to teachers depressed relative to the gains to be had from providing smaller classrooms. In a more solid sense it's much harder to evaluate the value provided by a better elementary school teacher because most of the metrics for success are either years in the future (wages, college graduation rates, etc) or tied up in a huge number of other influences. These kinds of defuse benefit jobs are a lot of what have been traditionally gendered as women's jobs and in the past were just part of the huge unpaid work that women were expected to do and often are unfairly characterized as easier or less educated/lower skilled jobs. There's a whole gendered history tied up in just how we evaluate these jobs and their benefits.
  - sleepysysadmin 8y ago
    1. Could you provide a source showing this discrimination in school? I went to school, men and women were definitely told they could be anything. Also the schools are extremely left-wing SJW(Canadian schools teach children that the right-wing are all racists) so I find this assertion to be immensely unlikely. 2. Teachers in Ontario receive ~$140,000/year for 8 months of work, 5 hours a day. This is publicly available via the sunshine list. If you're using teachers as an example of bias. You're barking up the wrong tree here these inflated teacher wages raise the wages of women on average. Furthermore, teachers are outside the standard capitalist system. If you want to use them as an example of valuation of you must support the privatization of teachers. I would support that idea. Might not end up well for those $140,000 teachers. The point is though, women are not 100% teachers and the teacher unions are extremely strong; women and men are being paid the same as teachers.
    - 8y ago
camelNotation 8y ago
This horse has been beaten to death, beaten again, and is now resembling something less than horse-like, but women that are given equal opportunity to pursue any career path they want will choose paths they enjoy instead of paths that offer raw financial gain. Same is true for men too, actually. It just so happens that more women prefer socially oriented jobs like teaching and nursing than men do. It's not complicated. Freedom doesn't mean everyone is equal in every aspect, it just means that everyone can choose what to be instead of being told what to be and - shockingly - not everyone wants to be the same thing.

by rdtsc 8y ago

Gpetrium 8y ago

I think it is worth noting that the quality of the data can vary a lot from country to country. On average, governments in countries such as Germany and Norway tend to be more critical and transparent of their own actions while others may try to swipe the issue under the rug of inflate numbers when they deem appropriate. Of course, it doesn't mean there are no truths to the data, it just needs to be taken with a grain of salt even if it is the OECD.

rdtsc 8y ago
> On average, governments in countries such as Germany and Norway tend to be more critical and transparent of their own actions while others may try to swipe the issue under the rug of inflate numbers when they deem appropriate. Great point. Yeah I can see that happening.

sleepysysadmin 8y ago

The explanation is simple. When you provide women the opportunity to become anything they want. They choose the careers that they choose. Which tend to me more social related careers. Teaching or nursing for example does not scale well; therefore salaries are limited. Whereas men pick more "stuff" categories. It's men who work in STEM creating things. A car or an iphone is going to be generally speaking men who design it. These scale very well and salaries can be larger. By these modern approaches that allow women to go into whatever they want to do. This is what creates the gender wage gap.

rtkwe 8y ago
The 'people just choosing different careers' throws a lot of inequality under a rug and calls the problem solved. 1) If we tell women their whole childhood that some jobs are for men and some are for women and vice versa for men then ask them when they turn 18 what job they want we'll get horrendously unequal outcomes even though people are completely free to choose. 2) Valuation of jobs is based partially on the view of the value of the work in addition to the actual value provided. e.g. there's huge amount of societal gain to be reaped by providing better education to our children but various forces keeps the wages to teachers depressed relative to the gains to be had from providing smaller classrooms. In a more solid sense it's much harder to evaluate the value provided by a better elementary school teacher because most of the metrics for success are either years in the future (wages, college graduation rates, etc) or tied up in a huge number of other influences. These kinds of defuse benefit jobs are a lot of what have been traditionally gendered as women's jobs and in the past were just part of the huge unpaid work that women were expected to do and often are unfairly characterized as easier or less educated/lower skilled jobs. There's a whole gendered history tied up in just how we evaluate these jobs and their benefits.
- sleepysysadmin 8y ago
  1. Could you provide a source showing this discrimination in school? I went to school, men and women were definitely told they could be anything. Also the schools are extremely left-wing SJW(Canadian schools teach children that the right-wing are all racists) so I find this assertion to be immensely unlikely. 2. Teachers in Ontario receive ~$140,000/year for 8 months of work, 5 hours a day. This is publicly available via the sunshine list. If you're using teachers as an example of bias. You're barking up the wrong tree here these inflated teacher wages raise the wages of women on average. Furthermore, teachers are outside the standard capitalist system. If you want to use them as an example of valuation of you must support the privatization of teachers. I would support that idea. Might not end up well for those $140,000 teachers. The point is though, women are not 100% teachers and the teacher unions are extremely strong; women and men are being paid the same as teachers.
  - 8y ago

camelNotation 8y ago

This horse has been beaten to death, beaten again, and is now resembling something less than horse-like, but women that are given equal opportunity to pursue any career path they want will choose paths they enjoy instead of paths that offer raw financial gain. Same is true for men too, actually. It just so happens that more women prefer socially oriented jobs like teaching and nursing than men do. It's not complicated. Freedom doesn't mean everyone is equal in every aspect, it just means that everyone can choose what to be instead of being told what to be and - shockingly - not everyone wants to be the same thing.