4 ms·

You have to blind to be surprised by this outcome. The lower representation of women in STEM, has to do with fewer women wanting to join STEM or Tech programs

by screye 5y ago

You have to blind to be surprised by this outcome. The lower representation of women in STEM, has to do with fewer women wanting to join STEM or Tech programs in the first place. These preferences are especially visible among domestic candidates. Given the lower supply of minority candidates and proportionally higher demand to appear diverse, major institutions will naturally end up with a bias favoring minorities in hiring on an individual basis. Now, I will admit that the bias may not always manifest in a lower bar. Often, it involves simply interviewing more minorities or making it easier for them access grants, top projects or awards that accelerate their careers. Some of these benefits are implicitly reaped by the rich and connected, irrespective of their minority status. Others might argue, that the explicit affirmative action is merely balancing a culture that innately discourages women from entering the field. That's a whole another discussion. But, to think that the observations of this study were surprising, shows priors born out of drinking political koolaid.

yucky 5y ago
>the bias may not always manifest in a lower bar And when it does...what should society be doing about that?
- vnchr 5y ago
  Strict denial. The necessary cost of representation is diversifying our standards for success.
  - yucky 5y ago
    >diversifying our standards for success. AKA rewarding mediocrity.
    - vnchr 5y ago
      ;-)
walkhour 5y ago
> it involves simply interviewing more minorities Is this really possible? If some company with resources over-interviews and over-hires some minority, then necessarily won't there be other companies that would be forced to under-hire from that minority because those resources will have been removed from the (fixed size) hiring pool, where the minority is now even more underrepresented. This only works if the hiring pool is unbounded or there's a hidden pool of that minority somewhere that wasn't taken into account when figuring out the original percentages. It can't be done by all companies, only by a few that can take more than "their minority fair share".
- kevincox 5y ago
  Interviews aren't a perfect selector. They have a huge random element. So if minorities consistently get more interview opportunities with the per-interview variance and per-employer bar variance they are more likely to have an interview where they do better than the bar. This means that over-interviewed minorities will be hired even at a lower "quality". Basically for both groups there is the top quality which will always be hired and the bottom quality which will never be hired. However the difference appears in the middle group that will eventually be hired given enough interviews. For minorities with more interviews a higher portion of this group will be hired. The more over-interviewing and over-hiring you do this group will get more and more drained. But there are still members on the lower end that will eventually be hired given enough opportunity.

by screye 5y ago

yucky 5y ago

>the bias may not always manifest in a lower bar And when it does...what should society be doing about that?

vnchr 5y ago
Strict denial. The necessary cost of representation is diversifying our standards for success.
- yucky 5y ago
  >diversifying our standards for success. AKA rewarding mediocrity.
  - vnchr 5y ago
    ;-)

walkhour 5y ago

> it involves simply interviewing more minorities Is this really possible? If some company with resources over-interviews and over-hires some minority, then necessarily won't there be other companies that would be forced to under-hire from that minority because those resources will have been removed from the (fixed size) hiring pool, where the minority is now even more underrepresented. This only works if the hiring pool is unbounded or there's a hidden pool of that minority somewhere that wasn't taken into account when figuring out the original percentages. It can't be done by all companies, only by a few that can take more than "their minority fair share".

kevincox 5y ago
Interviews aren't a perfect selector. They have a huge random element. So if minorities consistently get more interview opportunities with the per-interview variance and per-employer bar variance they are more likely to have an interview where they do better than the bar. This means that over-interviewed minorities will be hired even at a lower "quality". Basically for both groups there is the top quality which will always be hired and the bottom quality which will never be hired. However the difference appears in the middle group that will eventually be hired given enough interviews. For minorities with more interviews a higher portion of this group will be hired. The more over-interviewing and over-hiring you do this group will get more and more drained. But there are still members on the lower end that will eventually be hired given enough opportunity.