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If you read that article they believe it is due to women self-selecting out of the field before ever applying for those positions. Or IE. the hiring standards f
by DSMan195276 4y ago
If you read that article they believe it is due to women self-selecting out of the field before ever applying for those positions. Or IE. the hiring standards for both groups are not necessarily different, but female candidates are less likely to apply and those that are willing to apply are better qualified:
> Our research suggests that the mechanism resulting in women’s underrepresentation today may lie more on the supply side, in women’s decisions not to apply, than on the demand side, in antifemale bias in hiring. The perception that STEM fields continue to be inhospitable male bastions can become self-reinforcing by discouraging female applicants (26–29), thus contributing to continued underrepresentation, which in turn may obscure underlying attitudinal changes.
> Thus, real-world hiring data showing a preference for women, inherently confounded and open to multiple interpretations because of lack of controls on applicant quality, experience, and lifestyle, are consistent with our experimental findings.
> We hope the discovery of an overall 2:1 preference for hiring women over otherwise identical men will help counter self-handicapping and opting-out by talented women at the point of entry to the STEM professoriate, and suggest that female underrepresentation can be addressed in part by increasing the number of women applying for tenure-track positions.
Edit: Hence why this is complicated. You're clearly suggesting the 2:1 ratio indicates it must be unfair in some way, but the article itself suggests it's not. Fundamentally, you cannot assume that merit-based hiring would result in a 1:1 ratio of male/female, at least not initially.
- drno123 4y agoMerit based hiring would never be 1:1, but 2:1 is enormous. I would expect something like 1.2:1 in either direction.
- DSMan195276 4y ago> Merit based hiring would never be 1:1, but 2:1 is enormous. I would expect something like 1.2:1 in either direction. Aren't you now doing the same thing that's being criticized, by simply picking a ratio that "looks" good to you regardless of the underlying groups?
- mpweiher 4y ago"I would expect..." ≠ "It actually has to be this way"
- mpweiher 4y ago> If you read that article they believe it is due I did read it. A while ago. And a lot of the angry "rebuttals" as well. From the section you quoted: "...the mechanism resulting in women’s underrepresentation..." So the "it" you refer to is not the 2:1 hiring advantage, but the underrepresentation. The rest of your comment suffers from the same misunderstanding.
- DSMan195276 4y agoThe point is that the mechanism behind the underrepresentation and behind the 2:1 hiring advantage is the same. Consider: The groups compared in that study are the same size, but we also agree women are underrepresented in the overall group, due to facts that likely cause less-qualified women to leave the group. What do you think happens if you then pick an equal number of men and women from both groups and compare them? Which group will have more qualified candidates? Obviously the women.
- mpweiher 4y ago> the mechanism behind the underrepresentation and behind the 2:1 hiring advantage is the same. That turns out not to be the case. > Which group will have more qualified candidates? The candidates were equally qualified.