4 ms·

Genuine question: Are there ways to "organically" promote gender balance without having to rely on gender quotas?

by m000 4y ago

cies 4y ago
This happens already. I'd love to add some more women to my dev team, as that has shown great benefits in earlier teams i hired for.
grenoire 4y ago
Investment in education and social welfare, combined with time. My university is growing into having a more balanced faculty mainly because it is now seeing an increasing number of female candidates. This is a result of the study (economics and finance) becoming more popular in the past two decades with women, and we are seeing the results only now. There will always be lagged effects in this. Granted, there are quotas in place too.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Except that poorer countries that invest less in social welfare tend to feature more gender balance than advanced countries. Because preference and aptitude matters a lot; male and female folks simply tend to care about different things.
maytc 4y ago
One simple method: You start the search with a 50%/50% split, in this case half men and half women, then hire the best candidate from that cohort
- medstrom 4y ago
  The problem in this approach is that even people who think they judge only on merits rarely do. If it was that easy, our laws would all be this sort of thing. It's easy to trust people to counter biases they know they have. Quotas exist to counter biases people don't know they have.
AdrianB1 4y ago
There are some people easy to find on Internet pretending* that if you leave the people to do what they like most, gender inequality per roles is increasing because of different preferences. In that context, gender balance means forcing people to do something they don't like for the sake of a target that has no clear benefit. * They say they have good and relevant studies about this, but I never bothered to dig.
mcv 4y ago
This is the big question. You may dislike quotas, but what alternative is there? Well, there is some alternative of course, because a lot of companies and organisations already do meet these quotas. But what about those that don't? What about those that steadfastly refuse? Allow them to continue their gender discrimination (technically illegal, but easily excused)? Or require them more strongly to change?
nickpp 4y ago
Of course there is. You just have to improve the demand side of the employment equation: make starting companies so easy and profitable that the competition for hires will make them get over any gender prejudice they may have. Takes a little longer but in the end you have a much healthier economy.

Genuine question: Are there ways to "organically" promote gender balance without having to rely on gender quotas?

by m000 4y ago

Genuine question: Are there ways to "organically" promote gender balance without having to rely on gender quotas?

cies 4y ago

This happens already. I'd love to add some more women to my dev team, as that has shown great benefits in earlier teams i hired for.

grenoire 4y ago

Investment in education and social welfare, combined with time. My university is growing into having a more balanced faculty mainly because it is now seeing an increasing number of female candidates. This is a result of the study (economics and finance) becoming more popular in the past two decades with women, and we are seeing the results only now. There will always be lagged effects in this. Granted, there are quotas in place too.

zozbot234 4y ago
Except that poorer countries that invest less in social welfare tend to feature more gender balance than advanced countries. Because preference and aptitude matters a lot; male and female folks simply tend to care about different things.

maytc 4y ago

One simple method: You start the search with a 50%/50% split, in this case half men and half women, then hire the best candidate from that cohort

medstrom 4y ago
The problem in this approach is that even people who think they judge only on merits rarely do. If it was that easy, our laws would all be this sort of thing. It's easy to trust people to counter biases they know they have. Quotas exist to counter biases people don't know they have.

AdrianB1 4y ago

There are some people easy to find on Internet pretending* that if you leave the people to do what they like most, gender inequality per roles is increasing because of different preferences. In that context, gender balance means forcing people to do something they don't like for the sake of a target that has no clear benefit. * They say they have good and relevant studies about this, but I never bothered to dig.

mcv 4y ago

This is the big question. You may dislike quotas, but what alternative is there? Well, there is some alternative of course, because a lot of companies and organisations already do meet these quotas. But what about those that don't? What about those that steadfastly refuse? Allow them to continue their gender discrimination (technically illegal, but easily excused)? Or require them more strongly to change?

nickpp 4y ago

Of course there is. You just have to improve the demand side of the employment equation: make starting companies so easy and profitable that the competition for hires will make them get over any gender prejudice they may have. Takes a little longer but in the end you have a much healthier economy.