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This denialism is not compatible with the facts. While part of the gender pay gap can be explained by the factors you describe, not all of it can. This unexplai

• nkkollaw 8y ago
  "denialism", like it's an irrefutable fact? From Wikipedia I read: "a substantial portion of the pay gap (12%) remained unexplained.". Pretty small, and a lot smaller than what feminists claim the gap to be. Then, at the end of the same section you linked: "In 2018, economists at the University of Chicago and Stanford University, working with Uber analyzing the gender pay gap of Uber drivers demonstrated an average 7% pay gap in a context where gender discrimination was not possible and pay was not negotiated, showing the difference entirely explainable as the difference in average productivity between men and women". Am I mistaken in interpreting this to mean that only 5% is unexplained, and that "unexplained" does not mean evil patriarchy? Any group of people will be discriminated by 5%. For instance, I'm Italian. Are you telling me that in the States I won't find 5% (or even 12% or more) of people that think I'm dishonest, mafioso, lazy, etc..? Give me a break.
  • dstrohmaier 8y ago
    I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation. You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is. Nowhere in my comment do I refer to any "evial patriarchy", although I do consider such an issue grave. If around half of the working population is discriminated against by 5% that would be a pretty huge issue overall. That other instances of discrimination exist, for example discrimination against people of Italian descent does not change that. I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense.
    • nkkollaw 8y ago
      > I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation. I don't believe so. > You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is. I have no idea why it was flagged because it was a normal comment, and not even a very controversial position to hold. You're saying "has now been flagged" like I called for all women to be killed while swearing and offending people (perhaps to discredit me/my opinions?). As for changing my mind (or even "reneging from that denial"), I think you're overestimating yourself: you didn't present anything that made me change my mind. 10% of unaccounted "discrimination" would be proof that this is an issue? Even if it was (which we don't know), like I said you can find 10% of people that will discriminate against anything: Italians, women, attractive vs. unattractive people, blacks, blond people, fat people, skinny people. This whole thing is overblown. There are certain people that want to see injustice everywhere and will use the 10% pay gap that is unaccounted for to prove that there is a problem of women being oppressed, while either there is no problem, or it's so little to be negligible and most importantly similar to other biases. > I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense. I think it's a perfect example. Even taking away human bias--so, removing the hiring process, men and women perform differently. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare men and women like they're exactly the same, or why when you do you'll get a 10% discrepancy. You know what we could agree on? That we are human and will naturally be 10% biased towards anything. Not only women, but all groups of people I mentioned and more. Sometimes it's women, sometimes it's Italians, sometimes it's attractive vs. unattractive people. This obsession with equality of outcome creates a lot more problems than that 10%, considering that while you may lose 10% on your workplace because of bias/opinion X, you might gain 10% in other aspects of your life and at the end it just averages out. In first-world and second-world western countries people have equality of opportunity, which is what really counts. EDIT: HN doesn't allow me to reply to your comment below (thread too deep), but it's not worth it anyway.
• belorn 8y ago
  Wikipedia do mention the distinction between unadjusted versus adjusted pay gap in the Gender pay gap article, but sadly the article is very sparse on details. It is the adjusted pay gap that is disputed. No one is really disputing unadjusted pay gap, through some consider that unadjusted pay gap should include everyone including those unemployed. The problem with unadjusted pay gap is that it ignore context. With context we get a very large variation in the data sets, and large variation in control variables. There is no standard in what variable to use with adjusted pay gap. Variables commonly cited when comparing full time employed men and women is that men work almost an hour longer per day than women for the same job. Women also use about 50% more sick days, and if I remember right from a study from Norway, about 200% more likely to have children compared to men. Those that have children are then also more likely to stay at home to take care of them, which is a related issue but not the same as pay gap. Overtime is an other factor which correlates with pay raise, as is moving work location and changing employer. A good sign when I look at such studies is if they can use the same data to predict whom will get a pay raise within the same gender group. The better they can do that the better they can account for those factors when comparing the gender groups to each other. Sadly very few studies does this.
  • nkkollaw 8y ago
    > A good sign when I look at such studies is if they can use the same data to predict whom will get a pay raise within the same gender group. The ones that do don't see a problem. OP had to link the ones that don't to prove his point.
    • dstrohmaier 8y ago
      The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues. As I am not an economist myself, I do not want to weigh in on the specific final conclusion the literature arrives at. All I can say, that multiple studies seem to find an unexplained part which is taken to be due to discrimination.
      • nkkollaw 8y ago
        > The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues The sentence I said that triggered you was "0 economists are working on this problem", referring obviously to the pay gap caused by discrimination. You have linked to inaccurate (as per comment above) studies that study whether there is a pay gap or not, and are inconclusive. Since the pay gap as a problem--therefore not as a hard-to-measure occurrence but as a problem caused by discrimination--has not been proven, there are 0 economist working on this problem. It's not been proven to be an actual problem that exists, and that's why no economist is working on fixing it.
• ralusek 8y ago
  > This unexplained part is often assumed to be (largely) due to discrimination This is literally the part that is controversial, and you're asserting it as a given. Controlling for almost any confounding variable so far has reduced the wage gap, the majority of which was/is often put forward as primarily having been the consequence of discrimination to begin with. There are things that are also simply very difficult to control for, but are certainly at play. Are you sure that productivity is being measured outside of hours worked? Aggressiveness in salary negotiation? Actual hours worked vs. full-time time presumption as all members being 40 hour week? I often see one study attempt to control for one factor and fail on another. Cartoonish discrimination strikes me personally as among the least likely defacto explanations for the remaining gap.
  • nkkollaw 8y ago
    You are correct with all your points IMO. The most important IMHO is salary negotiation. Women are less prone to challenge what they're given. That's the reason why a razor for women that is identical but painted a different color is more expensive--women will buy it without challenging the price. Following the same pattern, women are less prone to both negotiate a better salary when hired and ask for a raise. It's also true that women value people more than objects and work jobs where they take care of people instead of fiddling with objects, which pays less and is less scalable. Finally, less women get satisfaction from "being the best", so while there are a lot of women CEOs and in particular women politicians, most women are not attracted by the prospect of sacrificing everything to get to the top. There are people that have been taught that there is discrimination, and will see it everywhere. With the pay gap--which would normally be explained by a variety of naturally-occurring things--they just jump to the conclusion that of course it MUST be caused by patriarchy and discrimination. Since it's a very hard thing to measure, you might even be able to find studies that "prove" this theory. Those women lose however, because if they spent as much time working on the skills that would help them get more money (in particular negotiating skills) as much as they spend complaining about oppression or commiserating themselves, they would make the same if not more than men. The most powerful people in Europe are women (Merkel, May, etc.). Either there is no powerful oppressive male patriarchy, or we really suck at it. Either way, women get become as successful as they are willing to work for, in western countries.