6 ms·

> I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. There certainly is. Igno

by burnte 7y ago

> I guess it worked for him to throw a hissy fit, but there's absolutely no reason to actually believe they're conditioning on gender. There certainly is. Ignoring the anecdotal data of people replying to him who saw the same outcome, credit scores for women skew lower than for men. One of many sources: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/gender-related-differences-in-credit-use-and-credit-scores-20180622.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/gend...

zamalek 7y ago
> credit scores for women skew lower than for men. Which is crazy, because for most of my guy friends (myself included), saying that their significant others/women make significantly better financial decisions is putting it far too lightly. I basically wasn't making decisions at all (besides savings) until my s/o set me right. This discrimination is tragic and disgusting.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Here is a recent article squeeing about women finally being willing to buy homes on their own: https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-of-the-single-female-homeowner https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-... One of the statistics in it: Single women can only afford about 39% of homes. Single men can afford more than half. Historically, couples with traditional marriages (primary breadwinner husband, wife whose primary responsibilities were women's work) often did not bother to put her name on a real estate transaction or car purchase. This substantially impairs a woman's ability to establish a credit record and reduces her legal claim to assets. If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income. Someone who was a full-time wife and mom will face serious barriers to establishing a real career at all and may well remain poor for years to come. I'm quite financially savvy. Financial savvy only goes so far. Ability to pay still matters and men are more likely to have that piece covered.
  - acjohnson55 7y ago
    Yeah. It wasn't that long ago the mortgage industry was rife with blatant gender discrimination, which contributed to this issue. I've learned this from the compliance training at the mortgage lender where I currently work.
    - DoreenMichele 7y ago
      I don't doubt it, but I think it's far more complicated than that. I think a great deal of potentially low hanging fruit is actively overlooked by the tendency the world has to go looking for ill intent. In cases where the explanation is something like "No, seriously, she simply cannot afford it." efforts to root out presumed bias are not only unhelpful, they are actively counterproductive. I need more income. Period. If you were to approve me for a mortgage this minute for the $550k building I desire, I simply cannot make the payments. It's not going to fix anything. First, get me the money. That's the one thing no one on this planet seems seriously willing to help me with and there is always some BS excuse.
      - acjohnson55 7y ago
        Totally agree. When I taught high school in a impoverished area, someone somewhere said that poverty is acute lack of money, period. Everything else is a symptom (or feedback cause). So we spend all this time creating convoluted strategies to address poverty, except actually giving people money. Obviously, doing so wouldn't fix all problems on Day One for all people, but I now suspect it would be a lot more efficient than a lot of our efforts, and it would make the remaining problems more tractable.
  - burnte 7y ago
    > Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Very true, because they aren't as smart and they don't work as hard. No, wait, sorry, it's actually because there are stereotypes about women that aren't even remotely true that are reinforced decades after they were found to be offensive through institutional sexism such as the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. So, maybe the lower credit scores simply reflect the deck stacked against women in the workplace.
- kyrieeschaton 7y ago
  "Good financial decisions" are only at a very specific margin associated with credit score. If you have an underwater car loan you can't really afford comfortably that you nonetheless make the minimums on whilst eating rice and beans, you'll have great credit after a couple years. If you strategically defaulted immediately after buying your ridiculously underwater condo in 2008 and it took them 3 years to foreclose on you, you made a great financial decision and your credit is trashed for the next six years. Credit scores specifically correlate with default risk, not some abstracted measure of financial health.
kyrieeschaton 7y ago
Except for 1) according to him, the bureau they were using for underwriting data indicated she had higher credit score 2) "conditioning on credit score which is correlated with gender" is not conditioning on gender. The algorithms that derive credit score from a set of credit data do not condition on gender.
- burnte 7y ago
  > 2) "conditioning on credit score which is correlated with gender" is not conditioning on gender. The algorithms that derive credit score from a set of credit data do not condition on gender. It does if the algorithm is based on flawed assumptions, or worse, fed data based on institutionalized sexism.
  - kyrieeschaton 7y ago
    I dare you to claim Goldman is using gender as an input variable for credit underwriting. Since no one is actually doing this, we're back to something like "maybe (altho there's no evidence for this either) people indistinguishable from Mrs. DHH actually do look more likely to default, which is society's fault and thus Goldman should just take the hit".

by burnte 7y ago

zamalek 7y ago

> credit scores for women skew lower than for men. Which is crazy, because for most of my guy friends (myself included), saying that their significant others/women make significantly better financial decisions is putting it far too lightly. I basically wasn't making decisions at all (besides savings) until my s/o set me right. This discrimination is tragic and disgusting.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Here is a recent article squeeing about women finally being willing to buy homes on their own: https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-of-the-single-female-homeowner https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-... One of the statistics in it: Single women can only afford about 39% of homes. Single men can afford more than half. Historically, couples with traditional marriages (primary breadwinner husband, wife whose primary responsibilities were women's work) often did not bother to put her name on a real estate transaction or car purchase. This substantially impairs a woman's ability to establish a credit record and reduces her legal claim to assets. If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income. Someone who was a full-time wife and mom will face serious barriers to establishing a real career at all and may well remain poor for years to come. I'm quite financially savvy. Financial savvy only goes so far. Ability to pay still matters and men are more likely to have that piece covered.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  Yeah. It wasn't that long ago the mortgage industry was rife with blatant gender discrimination, which contributed to this issue. I've learned this from the compliance training at the mortgage lender where I currently work.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I don't doubt it, but I think it's far more complicated than that. I think a great deal of potentially low hanging fruit is actively overlooked by the tendency the world has to go looking for ill intent. In cases where the explanation is something like "No, seriously, she simply cannot afford it." efforts to root out presumed bias are not only unhelpful, they are actively counterproductive. I need more income. Period. If you were to approve me for a mortgage this minute for the $550k building I desire, I simply cannot make the payments. It's not going to fix anything. First, get me the money. That's the one thing no one on this planet seems seriously willing to help me with and there is always some BS excuse.
    - acjohnson55 7y ago
      Totally agree. When I taught high school in a impoverished area, someone somewhere said that poverty is acute lack of money, period. Everything else is a symptom (or feedback cause). So we spend all this time creating convoluted strategies to address poverty, except actually giving people money. Obviously, doing so wouldn't fix all problems on Day One for all people, but I now suspect it would be a lot more efficient than a lot of our efforts, and it would make the remaining problems more tractable.
- burnte 7y ago
  > Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Very true, because they aren't as smart and they don't work as hard. No, wait, sorry, it's actually because there are stereotypes about women that aren't even remotely true that are reinforced decades after they were found to be offensive through institutional sexism such as the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. So, maybe the lower credit scores simply reflect the deck stacked against women in the workplace.
kyrieeschaton 7y ago
"Good financial decisions" are only at a very specific margin associated with credit score. If you have an underwater car loan you can't really afford comfortably that you nonetheless make the minimums on whilst eating rice and beans, you'll have great credit after a couple years. If you strategically defaulted immediately after buying your ridiculously underwater condo in 2008 and it took them 3 years to foreclose on you, you made a great financial decision and your credit is trashed for the next six years. Credit scores specifically correlate with default risk, not some abstracted measure of financial health.

kyrieeschaton 7y ago

Except for 1) according to him, the bureau they were using for underwriting data indicated she had higher credit score 2) "conditioning on credit score which is correlated with gender" is not conditioning on gender. The algorithms that derive credit score from a set of credit data do not condition on gender.

burnte 7y ago
> 2) "conditioning on credit score which is correlated with gender" is not conditioning on gender. The algorithms that derive credit score from a set of credit data do not condition on gender. It does if the algorithm is based on flawed assumptions, or worse, fed data based on institutionalized sexism.
- kyrieeschaton 7y ago
  I dare you to claim Goldman is using gender as an input variable for credit underwriting. Since no one is actually doing this, we're back to something like "maybe (altho there's no evidence for this either) people indistinguishable from Mrs. DHH actually do look more likely to default, which is society's fault and thus Goldman should just take the hit".