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I recently was talking to a libertarian friend about this kind of thing (specifically the gender wage gap). He argued that if there were a group of people getti

I recently was talking to a libertarian friend about this kind of thing (specifically the gender wage gap). He argued that if there were a group of people getting paid less for the same work, then any good business would only hire people like that, because it's cheaper. Obviously this isn't the case, but I do find it curious that the market doesn't seem to prove a strong enough incentive for the people making hiring decisions to overcome their biases.

minikites 8y ago
Almost no person even resembles the "rational actor" we learn about in Econ 101. Environment, unconscious biases, and conscious biases have a large influence on most people's behavior.
karlkatzke 8y ago
Libertarians are totally right ... when they only consider certain variables that are favorable to their arguments. When you combine "wages are lower for women" with "the free market," you get "businesses will insist on hiring more women any way they can." But when you add in "techbro bias against women (and mutual disgust at having to work with the techbro fraternity with constant harassment)" and reference again "women in tech get paid less" you get fewer women available in a market (because a free market goes both ways) and less chance of women being hired on despite HR and management constantly pushing for more women.
- anonlapwarmer 8y ago
  Libertarians are insane utopians who got their ideas from the Koch brothers' Cato Institute and a fiction writer who was damaged goods from an extreme overreaction to totalitarianism masquerading as communism.
thorwasdfasdf 8y ago
You are theoretically correct. To some degree that is already happening. But, I would imagine, the gap isn't large enough for it to overcome other factors: companies aren't always able to make perfect hiring decisions, there's a great deal of error involved. Alot of times highering decisions are just made based on the interviewer's feelings, or sometimes just the order in which the candidates were presented. I've seen situations where the best candidate was interviewed first and failed (just because he was first). Then by the time the company got around to finish interviewing 5 more, several weeks later, the interviewees got so tired of interviewing they just accepted the last candidate, even though in my opinion there had been several better ones earlier.
luckylion 8y ago
> Obviously this isn't the case, but I do find it curious that the market doesn't seem to prove a strong enough incentive for the people making hiring decisions to overcome their biases. Or the biases just aren't there in the way somebody from the outside perceives them, or the market would very much take care of it. This kind of reasoning ("the fundamental market mechanics totally don't apply" vs "my perception is probably flawed and things aren't as easy as they seem") reminds me of most people's early reactions when they encounter bugs: "this must be a bug in the OS/compiler/interpreter" vs "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something". With more experience, they usually find out that it's somewhat unlikely to be the first person to encounter a super weird bug, and very likely to make mistakes.
- jimbokun 8y ago
  ""this must be a bug in the OS/compiler/interpreter" vs "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something"" At a certain point, you start fervently hoping it's "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something", because then you can fix it. But good luck waiting for the OS/compiler/interpreter to be fixed, or digging into an unfamiliar open source code base to fix it yourself.

minikites 8y ago

Almost no person even resembles the "rational actor" we learn about in Econ 101. Environment, unconscious biases, and conscious biases have a large influence on most people's behavior.

karlkatzke 8y ago

Libertarians are totally right ... when they only consider certain variables that are favorable to their arguments. When you combine "wages are lower for women" with "the free market," you get "businesses will insist on hiring more women any way they can." But when you add in "techbro bias against women (and mutual disgust at having to work with the techbro fraternity with constant harassment)" and reference again "women in tech get paid less" you get fewer women available in a market (because a free market goes both ways) and less chance of women being hired on despite HR and management constantly pushing for more women.

anonlapwarmer 8y ago
Libertarians are insane utopians who got their ideas from the Koch brothers' Cato Institute and a fiction writer who was damaged goods from an extreme overreaction to totalitarianism masquerading as communism.

thorwasdfasdf 8y ago

You are theoretically correct. To some degree that is already happening. But, I would imagine, the gap isn't large enough for it to overcome other factors: companies aren't always able to make perfect hiring decisions, there's a great deal of error involved. Alot of times highering decisions are just made based on the interviewer's feelings, or sometimes just the order in which the candidates were presented. I've seen situations where the best candidate was interviewed first and failed (just because he was first). Then by the time the company got around to finish interviewing 5 more, several weeks later, the interviewees got so tired of interviewing they just accepted the last candidate, even though in my opinion there had been several better ones earlier.

luckylion 8y ago

> Obviously this isn't the case, but I do find it curious that the market doesn't seem to prove a strong enough incentive for the people making hiring decisions to overcome their biases. Or the biases just aren't there in the way somebody from the outside perceives them, or the market would very much take care of it. This kind of reasoning ("the fundamental market mechanics totally don't apply" vs "my perception is probably flawed and things aren't as easy as they seem") reminds me of most people's early reactions when they encounter bugs: "this must be a bug in the OS/compiler/interpreter" vs "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something". With more experience, they usually find out that it's somewhat unlikely to be the first person to encounter a super weird bug, and very likely to make mistakes.

jimbokun 8y ago
""this must be a bug in the OS/compiler/interpreter" vs "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something"" At a certain point, you start fervently hoping it's "I must've made a mistake/misunderstood something", because then you can fix it. But good luck waiting for the OS/compiler/interpreter to be fixed, or digging into an unfamiliar open source code base to fix it yourself.