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The pipeline problem is a concern long term, but I don’t think it is the primary problem at the moment for a couple reasons. First, it assumes that the pool of
by slg 7y ago
The pipeline problem is a concern long term, but I don’t think it is the primary problem at the moment for a couple reasons.
First, it assumes that the pool of diverse candidates has already been exhausted. Anecdotally I have not seen evidence of that. If it was the problem you claim, we would expect female engineers to make much higher salaries than their male counterparts. There is no evidence that is happening. This will eventually be a problem once every company tries to be more diverse than the pool of candidates, but right now there does not seem to be enough companies prioritizing diversity to an extent that this is an issue.
Secondly one of the causes of the pipeline problem is not having enough visibly successful diverse people in the industry. The more diverse candidates that are put in positions to succeed, the more visible they become to the next generation, and the more likely the next generation believes that this career can be a path they can successfully pursue.
- umanwizard 7y ago> If it was the problem you claim, we would expect female engineers to make much higher salaries than their male counterparts. You lost me here. Why is this the case?
- slg 7y agoSimple supply and demand. If the demand for women exceeded the supply of women, then the naturally result is a bidding war for the available women that would drive up their salary. The fact that women in this industry don't make more than men disproves the idea that companies are currently prioritizing the hiring of women to an extent that the talent pool of available women cannot meet.
- umanwizard 7y agoWhy do you expect the demand for women to be different from the demand for similarly qualified men?
- slg 7y agoI don't, that was the idea I was arguing against. The comment I replied to put forward the hypothetical regarding every company wanting to hire 50% women in a world with only 20% of CS graduates being women. That would result in a world in which the demand for women is equal to men but the supply of women is much smaller than the supply of men. The natural result of that is that women have a higher salary than men. We know this isn't true so this is a modus tollens argument that disproves the original hypothetical.
- mensetmanusman 7y agoI don’t think anyone was making the argument you were arguing against...
- kortilla 7y agoYour wrong. The supply of women is the same as the supply of men when you don’t care about qualifications. And when you can’t legally pay someone more for their sex, you just lower the bar for that sex. So on paper it looks like they are making the same, but in reality they are making way more than their majority counterpart (because the incompetent majority wouldn’t even be hired in the first place).
- belorn 7y agoWhy assume that the only thing a companies can use in a bidding war for employees is money? We could use the same fact to prove that giving women more money than men do not increase the ration of women, as otherwise companies would have already done that.
- kortilla 7y agoNo, the other option is to hire incompetent women at a competent salary. That’s one of the major complaints with diversity programs. You can’t pay more to be able to fill the unfillable quota, so you just hire incompetent people at competent salaries instead. So yes, incompetent minorities make more than the competent majorities.
- srj 7y agoI'm not sure companies could legally pay women more than men. Sex is a protected class.
- lazyasciiart 7y agoAnd yet, men and women doing the same job don't always get the same salary.
- rarec 7y agoHardly anyone doing the same job gets the same salary, with notable exceptions. I certainly didn't make the same amount of money as my coworker at my old job.
- ken 7y ago> If it was the problem you claim, we would expect female engineers to make much higher salaries than their male counterparts. Or it just means one of the other stated assumptions is wrong, e.g., that companies don't really want 50% women. Every company I've worked for has been happy to hire women for any job, but none has ever made it a quota.