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It's not as though this assumption hasn't been incredibly off base in the past. The entire earnings gap started off at women earning 77 cents on the male dollar

It's not as though this assumption hasn't been incredibly off base in the past. The entire earnings gap started off at women earning 77 cents on the male dollar, until we controlled for field, and then specific profession, and then hours worked, and seniority. Controlling for each of these things has moved the earnings gap to less than 5%, and people still will claim that the last 5% must be due to sexism. My question is, why? It's been the wrong hypothesis so far.

strken 7y ago
Is controlling for hours worked and seniority just controlling for the specific methods sexism works through? Seems like you could implement a sexist pay gap by rewarding bums in seats even when it's not economically productive, or by only promoting men, and that these measures would then be controlled for.
- ameister14 7y ago
  No, it isn't, because controlling for those things means comparing the same job to the same job. The gap complaint is women being paid less for the exact same job and hours. It's different from the sexist glass ceiling.
- ralusek 7y ago
  At this point, though, you would have conceded the point that women are not simply paid less than men on the basis of their sex, the earnings are actually a function of hours worked and seniority. The earnings gap would simply be a downstream effect of the new proposition you are putting forward, which is that the hours worked and seniority are denied to women on the basis of their sex. This is not something that has been demonstrated to have been true, of course, but that would be the correct way of framing the argument.
mjmahone17 7y ago
I’m not sure why you’d assume that the field people choose is not related to sexism, or why seniority is not related to sexism. Maybe they aren’t (I don’t know the data either way), but this specific article provides data that shows even when a field is dominated by women at the undergraduate level, it is still dominated by men at the tenured professor level, who make sexist decisions at various points in the pipeline. Each of your controls could easily be explained by sexism. Seniority: if men are given promotions when their work was the same quality as women who were passed over, that’s sexism. Hours worked: if men are given full time employment, women part time, even when both want full time, that’s sexism. Field and specific profession: if women are encouraged by the exact same mentors to choose different fields, despite having the same credentials as men, that’s sexism. I’m not saying these factors are the result of sexism, but it’s a bit weird to assume it is, while having data in the original article that indicates all of the above, at least in academic professions, are significantly affected by sexism.
james-mcelwain 7y ago
This assumes that there is some essential demographic difference that causes fewer women to end up in these professions. While this may be somewhat supportable in the few fields where muscle mass is relevant, the contention here is that disparity in fields like higher education or software engineering is in itself due to sexism. It's nice that the pay gap isn't that large for women who do manage to enter these fields, but that doesn't address any of the underlying structural causes that prevent women from entering these fields in the first place.
- klipt 7y ago
  There are many possible hypotheses apart from "sexism against women" though. Consider the hypothesis of "sexism against men": society considers all women valuable, but only values men who earn a decent amount of money. Men who earn little find it hard to date and have children. Wouldn't this "sexism against men" spur men to choose high earning (but maybe not fulfilling) professions, while women would feel more free to aim for personally fulfilling (but lower earning) professions? By the metric of earnings this might look like sexism against women, but by the metric of life satisfaction, it might look more like sexism against men.
  - james-mcelwain 7y ago
    I'd strongly reject the argument that "society considers all women valuable", but even so, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Whether it's sexism against men or sexism against women, the disparity is a problem for women who want to enter these professions or for men who want to enter "more personally fulfilling" professions. Regardless of the framing, it's certainly true that inequality can lead to bad outcomes for both men and women.
    - klipt 7y ago
      > it's irrelevant to the discussion I think it's relevant to how we approach a solution. If the problem is "discrimination against educated women" then we need to educate people not to be biased against educated women. If the problem is "discrimination against low earning men", we need to educate people not to be biased against low earning men. My guess is that if women didn't prefer to date higher earning men, a lot of the wage gap would disappear. The social pressure to find a partner is huge, probably one of the strongest social forces in existence.
pnw_hazor 7y ago
When I was hiring folks female candidates always asked for less money than male candidates. Even when counseling female friends about what they should ask for during their job search they still low-balled themselves. Often it was much more than a 5% difference.

strken 7y ago

Is controlling for hours worked and seniority just controlling for the specific methods sexism works through? Seems like you could implement a sexist pay gap by rewarding bums in seats even when it's not economically productive, or by only promoting men, and that these measures would then be controlled for.

ameister14 7y ago
No, it isn't, because controlling for those things means comparing the same job to the same job. The gap complaint is women being paid less for the exact same job and hours. It's different from the sexist glass ceiling.
ralusek 7y ago
At this point, though, you would have conceded the point that women are not simply paid less than men on the basis of their sex, the earnings are actually a function of hours worked and seniority. The earnings gap would simply be a downstream effect of the new proposition you are putting forward, which is that the hours worked and seniority are denied to women on the basis of their sex. This is not something that has been demonstrated to have been true, of course, but that would be the correct way of framing the argument.

mjmahone17 7y ago

I’m not sure why you’d assume that the field people choose is not related to sexism, or why seniority is not related to sexism. Maybe they aren’t (I don’t know the data either way), but this specific article provides data that shows even when a field is dominated by women at the undergraduate level, it is still dominated by men at the tenured professor level, who make sexist decisions at various points in the pipeline. Each of your controls could easily be explained by sexism. Seniority: if men are given promotions when their work was the same quality as women who were passed over, that’s sexism. Hours worked: if men are given full time employment, women part time, even when both want full time, that’s sexism. Field and specific profession: if women are encouraged by the exact same mentors to choose different fields, despite having the same credentials as men, that’s sexism. I’m not saying these factors are the result of sexism, but it’s a bit weird to assume it is, while having data in the original article that indicates all of the above, at least in academic professions, are significantly affected by sexism.

james-mcelwain 7y ago

This assumes that there is some essential demographic difference that causes fewer women to end up in these professions. While this may be somewhat supportable in the few fields where muscle mass is relevant, the contention here is that disparity in fields like higher education or software engineering is in itself due to sexism. It's nice that the pay gap isn't that large for women who do manage to enter these fields, but that doesn't address any of the underlying structural causes that prevent women from entering these fields in the first place.

klipt 7y ago
There are many possible hypotheses apart from "sexism against women" though. Consider the hypothesis of "sexism against men": society considers all women valuable, but only values men who earn a decent amount of money. Men who earn little find it hard to date and have children. Wouldn't this "sexism against men" spur men to choose high earning (but maybe not fulfilling) professions, while women would feel more free to aim for personally fulfilling (but lower earning) professions? By the metric of earnings this might look like sexism against women, but by the metric of life satisfaction, it might look more like sexism against men.
- james-mcelwain 7y ago
  I'd strongly reject the argument that "society considers all women valuable", but even so, it's irrelevant to the discussion. Whether it's sexism against men or sexism against women, the disparity is a problem for women who want to enter these professions or for men who want to enter "more personally fulfilling" professions. Regardless of the framing, it's certainly true that inequality can lead to bad outcomes for both men and women.
  - klipt 7y ago
    > it's irrelevant to the discussion I think it's relevant to how we approach a solution. If the problem is "discrimination against educated women" then we need to educate people not to be biased against educated women. If the problem is "discrimination against low earning men", we need to educate people not to be biased against low earning men. My guess is that if women didn't prefer to date higher earning men, a lot of the wage gap would disappear. The social pressure to find a partner is huge, probably one of the strongest social forces in existence.

pnw_hazor 7y ago

When I was hiring folks female candidates always asked for less money than male candidates. Even when counseling female friends about what they should ask for during their job search they still low-balled themselves. Often it was much more than a 5% difference.