4 ms·

how would you be more efficient? you would be just as efficient. unless you paid them 18% less. in which case you'd be exploiting their situation.

Goronmon 13y ago
>unless you paid them 18% less. in which case you'd be exploiting their situation. Well, yes, but the point is, ethics aside, if it was as simple as just hiring from an entire subset of potential employees who are cheaper than others, why wouldn't you do it in order to have a more profitable business?
- dylandrop 13y ago
  > why wouldn't you do it in order to have a more profitable business? > ethics aside You wouldn't do it because it would be unethical. That's like saying "besides the fact that eating a cheese burger is terrible for you, why wouldn't you eat a cheese burger?"
  - papsosouid 13y ago
    Businesses do things that are unethical to gain a competitive advantage all the time. Constantly. Every day. The fact that none of them are exploiting this "wage gap" is pretty strong support for the fact that the gap isn't actually real.
    - dylandrop 13y ago
      See my post to mike_ash. It's hard to say that it's "pretty strong support for the fact that the age gap isn't actually real" without also noting that there's a lack of confidence in female workers' performance (so they wouldn't be hired in the first place).
      - papsosouid 13y ago
        But that is just an assumption, and a rather bold one at that. If there were evidence that there is a prevailing assumption that women are 18% less capable then you would have a point. But just making a baseless assertion like that doesn't work.
        dylandrop 13y ago
        Women are definitely assumed less capable, or at the very least, unhirable for some reason. See this link ("http://qz.com/103453/i-understood-gender-discrimination-after-i-added-mr-to-my-resume-and-landed-a-job/" http://qz.com/103453/i-understood-gender-discrimination-afte...). I might not have a link to a study for you, but it's certainly not a baseless assertion.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        Yes, that is a baseless assertion. I saw that when it was posted. I even commented on it. About how my wife had the exact same experience in reverse. A single personal anecdote is entirely meaningless.
        dylandrop 13y ago
        http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109 Happy? Besides, you've made quite a baseless assertion when assuming that there exist employers willing to exploit the fact that women are paid 18% less.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        No. Even if that were real instead of a link to a tabloid I wouldn't be happy, because that isn't relevant. We're not talking about leaders, we're talking about building a company with a massive advantage over the competition by hiring women as workers.
  - rglullis 13y ago
    Sigh. Is it really hard to try to see the point, instead of just arguing from the default position? This makes for a really boring discussion forum... Let's try again. The argument here is, basically: if it's true that men and women are interchangeable as resources of labor, then the wage gap can be seen as an opportunity for arbitrage. Any capitalist would just hire women (because the information the market has is based on the assumption that a woman can provide the same work as a man for a lesser cost), market forces would bring women's pay up, the wage gap would diminish until we reached an equilibrium. The argument is far from perfect (it ignores social and cultural aspects), but it is pretty reasonable as a way to see that if there is a difference in pay, there is a difference in aggregate output. What are the causes of this difference in output is subject to another topic, one I can't say I have an explanation or consolidated opinion. About the ethics of it: there is nothing unethical about choosing who to hire based on cost, if the quality of the final product is the same (and if the contracted parties are not doing anything unethical themselves). Let's remove the sex factor out of the equation... if a woman living in NY asks for $100k for some work, and another woman with "comparable education and experience" living in Poland asks for $30k, is it unethical to hire the Polish one?
tomp 13y ago
You wouldn't pay them less. You would simply put up a job ad that had salary 17% less than the market rate for men. Then, men wouldn't apply for the job, but equally efficient women would. It's a thought experiment that suggests that the wage gap doesn't exist.

Goronmon 13y ago

>unless you paid them 18% less. in which case you'd be exploiting their situation. Well, yes, but the point is, ethics aside, if it was as simple as just hiring from an entire subset of potential employees who are cheaper than others, why wouldn't you do it in order to have a more profitable business?

dylandrop 13y ago
> why wouldn't you do it in order to have a more profitable business? > ethics aside You wouldn't do it because it would be unethical. That's like saying "besides the fact that eating a cheese burger is terrible for you, why wouldn't you eat a cheese burger?"
- papsosouid 13y ago
  Businesses do things that are unethical to gain a competitive advantage all the time. Constantly. Every day. The fact that none of them are exploiting this "wage gap" is pretty strong support for the fact that the gap isn't actually real.
  - dylandrop 13y ago
    See my post to mike_ash. It's hard to say that it's "pretty strong support for the fact that the age gap isn't actually real" without also noting that there's a lack of confidence in female workers' performance (so they wouldn't be hired in the first place).
    - papsosouid 13y ago
      But that is just an assumption, and a rather bold one at that. If there were evidence that there is a prevailing assumption that women are 18% less capable then you would have a point. But just making a baseless assertion like that doesn't work.
      - dylandrop 13y ago
        Women are definitely assumed less capable, or at the very least, unhirable for some reason. See this link ("http://qz.com/103453/i-understood-gender-discrimination-after-i-added-mr-to-my-resume-and-landed-a-job/" http://qz.com/103453/i-understood-gender-discrimination-afte...). I might not have a link to a study for you, but it's certainly not a baseless assertion.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        Yes, that is a baseless assertion. I saw that when it was posted. I even commented on it. About how my wife had the exact same experience in reverse. A single personal anecdote is entirely meaningless.
        dylandrop 13y ago
        http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109 Happy? Besides, you've made quite a baseless assertion when assuming that there exist employers willing to exploit the fact that women are paid 18% less.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        No. Even if that were real instead of a link to a tabloid I wouldn't be happy, because that isn't relevant. We're not talking about leaders, we're talking about building a company with a massive advantage over the competition by hiring women as workers.
- rglullis 13y ago
  Sigh. Is it really hard to try to see the point, instead of just arguing from the default position? This makes for a really boring discussion forum... Let's try again. The argument here is, basically: if it's true that men and women are interchangeable as resources of labor, then the wage gap can be seen as an opportunity for arbitrage. Any capitalist would just hire women (because the information the market has is based on the assumption that a woman can provide the same work as a man for a lesser cost), market forces would bring women's pay up, the wage gap would diminish until we reached an equilibrium. The argument is far from perfect (it ignores social and cultural aspects), but it is pretty reasonable as a way to see that if there is a difference in pay, there is a difference in aggregate output. What are the causes of this difference in output is subject to another topic, one I can't say I have an explanation or consolidated opinion. About the ethics of it: there is nothing unethical about choosing who to hire based on cost, if the quality of the final product is the same (and if the contracted parties are not doing anything unethical themselves). Let's remove the sex factor out of the equation... if a woman living in NY asks for $100k for some work, and another woman with "comparable education and experience" living in Poland asks for $30k, is it unethical to hire the Polish one?

tomp 13y ago

You wouldn't pay them less. You would simply put up a job ad that had salary 17% less than the market rate for men. Then, men wouldn't apply for the job, but equally efficient women would. It's a thought experiment that suggests that the wage gap doesn't exist.