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It is horrifying to read the comments here. In Germany, where I live, on average, a woman will earn less than a man IF EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE SAME. Here is the

It is horrifying to read the comments here. In Germany, where I live, on average, a woman will earn less than a man IF EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE SAME. Here is the source (PDF, in German): https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/VerdiensteArbeitskosten/Verdienstunterschiede/VerdienstunterschiedeMannFrau5621001069004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Verdiens... No, this cannot be easily dismissed, yes they corrected for all the obvious stuff, no they don't have an agenda. This is a report by the official statistics bureau for Germany. Maybe the data for other countries is not as good, but why do so many people here immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility that this could actually be an existing pay bias?

JabavuAdams 13y ago
> [...] why do so many people here immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility that this could actually be an existing pay bias? <sarcasm> Because sexism and bigotry are properties of evil, despicable people, who aren't anything like us. We're cool progressive techno-optimists. We're so smart we couldn't possibly be bigoted. We're the new establishment. </sarcasm>
- sentenza 13y ago
  I find it funny that you would read me like that. Among my colleagues, I'm that one guy who, in his private life, is friends with "regular" people, who chooses to live in a rural area and who speaks with his native hillbilly accent. I'm aware that everybody has biases and preconceptions. I was taught to be aware of mine, which I think I am (and boy, they're something). But nonetheless, the dismissive tone of (some parts of) the conversation disappointed me and I think, given the standards to which HN holds itself, rightfully so.
  - sneaky_ruds 13y ago
    I don't think that this is aimed at you. JabavuAdams suggests that "I couldn't possibly be sexist because I'm not a bad person" is the reason that many commenters are dismissive of the idea that there may be sexism in an establishment to which they contribute.
    - sentenza 13y ago
      Oh. That indeed also makes sense. Thank you for pointing it out. It seems that I completely misinterpreted his comment.
jsymolon 13y ago
Then why hire men at all? If women earn less over a greater period of time that may offset the benefit cost.
- sentenza 13y ago
  Because children. My wife and I split the fourteen months of paternity leave between us and believe me, that stuff is rough. I can tell you from that experience, staying at home for a few months and then working while taking care of a small child changes your view on things and the view that others have of you. For one, you grow up to the point where you're not willing to accept all of the BS that work throws at you. Another thing is that you have "nothing to show" for a prolonged period of time and continue to underperform due to stress and lack of sleep. Add to that the additional issues that women have due to the bodily changes they go through and you have a serious incentive to avoid hiring women. This is of course made worse by the implicit assumption that women usually do all the taking care of children, thus becoming even worse "performers" after having them. On a side note: I was incredibly lucky to have a supportive employer that gave me the space necessary to take care of a child without getting completely derailed at work.
  - Tichy 13y ago
    So you have an explanation why women earn less (which you believe - not sure if that is the correct one), but you still believe in discrimination? How does that add up?
    - sentenza 13y ago
      Because the situation in its totality is discriminating. On one hand, society expects women to take care of children. On the other hand, taking care of children is a heavy broadside against ones career. And please don't use the biology excuse. In Slovenia and Poland, the pay gap is much less than in Germany[1], probably due to a different child care culture. The perverse thing about this is that many young women believe that their chances are the same as ours (you know, now that we have equal rights and everything). In reality, they are not treated as our equals. On a side note: A woman gets paid less even if she will never have children. This is discrimination. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/situation-europe/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/s...
papsosouid 13y ago
>No, this cannot be easily dismissed, yes they corrected for all the obvious stuff Well since most people here don't understand German, they can't verify that. The impartial, official data from the US shows the gap is too small to be statistically significant once you account for the things you say the German one accounted for. Why do you assume that people "immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility"? You don't even acknowledge the possibility that people are in fact informed and did consider that possibility, but found that the evidence does not support it? http://consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Fina...
Guvante 13y ago
I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age) I have found on Reddit and here that the top comments are almost always against the original article if there is any way to view the conclusion differently. I do not believe it is a systematic problem, it allows you to quickly get a hold of two conflicting viewpoints quickly. I took the top comment to be "It is extremely difficult to mitigate factors when it comes to the gender gap, especially lost work time due to child care", he then quoted a study where a differential comparison saw at least one example of the opposite gender inequality. Additionally the gender gap is rooted in cultural reasons, so comparing different countries is different. Specifically the existence of a certain gender gap in Germany does not mean such a gap exists in the US.
- sentenza 13y ago
  You make good points. I second the last thing you brought up: Germany has one of the worst gender pay gaps in Europe, so that the situation in the US is most likely better than here, not worse. However, I'd like to point out that my criticism was not aimed at the top comment but at many of the comments here in "the middle". What shocked me was not so much that people hold a view opposed to mine, but the dismissive tone of some posts.
Tichy 13y ago
I live in Germany and tried to dig into the data a bit, and so far I am not convinced. It is very difficult to get precise data, for starters. I am simply sceptic about the "everything is the same" claim - in many cases, how many instances of women and men with the exact same job, qualification and work hours did they even find? For example they claim female software developers earn less on average, but in 13 years working as a software developer, I have encountered only very, very few female software developers. I am highly doubtful that it is even possible to create a meaningful statistic here. And there might be still more factors at work, such as willingness to relocate or preference for certain branches. If male software developers tend to work for car companies, banks or telcos and female software developers tend to work for ad agencies or create web sites for mom and pos's grocery store (just made up, I have no idea), it could make a difference for example. But as I said, it is very difficult to get that kind of data. In the media I have seen worse offenses, for example the claim that female teachers earn less than male teachers, without mentioning that there are different kinds of schools (more women tend to work at elementary schools vs men working at high schools) - most teachers get a fixed salary determined by the government, so gender discrimination is next to impossible (there certainly is no government rule that female teachers earn less than male teachers). Or physicians, without mentioning that there are different branches of medicine and surgeons might have a harder job than pediatricians. What strikes me is that none of those wage gap studies ever seems to question why the wage gap exists. For example they could ask employers or even the employees themselves. It seems they just want to prove discrimination and stop once they have favorable data.
s_baby 13y ago
>I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age) But why not be careful in blindingly accepting it? Alot of it is based on questionable application of statistics. Why not let the data speak for itself rather than providing creative interpretations? For example, the early talking points were based on taking an average without even matching by job type. Ofcourse the part-time nanny doesn't earn as much as an overtime coal miner. That doesn't show a wage-gap.

JabavuAdams 13y ago

> [...] why do so many people here immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility that this could actually be an existing pay bias? <sarcasm> Because sexism and bigotry are properties of evil, despicable people, who aren't anything like us. We're cool progressive techno-optimists. We're so smart we couldn't possibly be bigoted. We're the new establishment. </sarcasm>

sentenza 13y ago
I find it funny that you would read me like that. Among my colleagues, I'm that one guy who, in his private life, is friends with "regular" people, who chooses to live in a rural area and who speaks with his native hillbilly accent. I'm aware that everybody has biases and preconceptions. I was taught to be aware of mine, which I think I am (and boy, they're something). But nonetheless, the dismissive tone of (some parts of) the conversation disappointed me and I think, given the standards to which HN holds itself, rightfully so.
- sneaky_ruds 13y ago
  I don't think that this is aimed at you. JabavuAdams suggests that "I couldn't possibly be sexist because I'm not a bad person" is the reason that many commenters are dismissive of the idea that there may be sexism in an establishment to which they contribute.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Oh. That indeed also makes sense. Thank you for pointing it out. It seems that I completely misinterpreted his comment.

jsymolon 13y ago

Then why hire men at all? If women earn less over a greater period of time that may offset the benefit cost.

sentenza 13y ago
Because children. My wife and I split the fourteen months of paternity leave between us and believe me, that stuff is rough. I can tell you from that experience, staying at home for a few months and then working while taking care of a small child changes your view on things and the view that others have of you. For one, you grow up to the point where you're not willing to accept all of the BS that work throws at you. Another thing is that you have "nothing to show" for a prolonged period of time and continue to underperform due to stress and lack of sleep. Add to that the additional issues that women have due to the bodily changes they go through and you have a serious incentive to avoid hiring women. This is of course made worse by the implicit assumption that women usually do all the taking care of children, thus becoming even worse "performers" after having them. On a side note: I was incredibly lucky to have a supportive employer that gave me the space necessary to take care of a child without getting completely derailed at work.
- Tichy 13y ago
  So you have an explanation why women earn less (which you believe - not sure if that is the correct one), but you still believe in discrimination? How does that add up?
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Because the situation in its totality is discriminating. On one hand, society expects women to take care of children. On the other hand, taking care of children is a heavy broadside against ones career. And please don't use the biology excuse. In Slovenia and Poland, the pay gap is much less than in Germany[1], probably due to a different child care culture. The perverse thing about this is that many young women believe that their chances are the same as ours (you know, now that we have equal rights and everything). In reality, they are not treated as our equals. On a side note: A woman gets paid less even if she will never have children. This is discrimination. [1] http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/situation-europe/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/s...

papsosouid 13y ago

>No, this cannot be easily dismissed, yes they corrected for all the obvious stuff Well since most people here don't understand German, they can't verify that. The impartial, official data from the US shows the gap is too small to be statistically significant once you account for the things you say the German one accounted for. Why do you assume that people "immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility"? You don't even acknowledge the possibility that people are in fact informed and did consider that possibility, but found that the evidence does not support it? http://consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Fina...

Guvante 13y ago

I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age) I have found on Reddit and here that the top comments are almost always against the original article if there is any way to view the conclusion differently. I do not believe it is a systematic problem, it allows you to quickly get a hold of two conflicting viewpoints quickly. I took the top comment to be "It is extremely difficult to mitigate factors when it comes to the gender gap, especially lost work time due to child care", he then quoted a study where a differential comparison saw at least one example of the opposite gender inequality. Additionally the gender gap is rooted in cultural reasons, so comparing different countries is different. Specifically the existence of a certain gender gap in Germany does not mean such a gap exists in the US.

sentenza 13y ago
You make good points. I second the last thing you brought up: Germany has one of the worst gender pay gaps in Europe, so that the situation in the US is most likely better than here, not worse. However, I'd like to point out that my criticism was not aimed at the top comment but at many of the comments here in "the middle". What shocked me was not so much that people hold a view opposed to mine, but the dismissive tone of some posts.

Tichy 13y ago

I live in Germany and tried to dig into the data a bit, and so far I am not convinced. It is very difficult to get precise data, for starters. I am simply sceptic about the "everything is the same" claim - in many cases, how many instances of women and men with the exact same job, qualification and work hours did they even find? For example they claim female software developers earn less on average, but in 13 years working as a software developer, I have encountered only very, very few female software developers. I am highly doubtful that it is even possible to create a meaningful statistic here. And there might be still more factors at work, such as willingness to relocate or preference for certain branches. If male software developers tend to work for car companies, banks or telcos and female software developers tend to work for ad agencies or create web sites for mom and pos's grocery store (just made up, I have no idea), it could make a difference for example. But as I said, it is very difficult to get that kind of data. In the media I have seen worse offenses, for example the claim that female teachers earn less than male teachers, without mentioning that there are different kinds of schools (more women tend to work at elementary schools vs men working at high schools) - most teachers get a fixed salary determined by the government, so gender discrimination is next to impossible (there certainly is no government rule that female teachers earn less than male teachers). Or physicians, without mentioning that there are different branches of medicine and surgeons might have a harder job than pediatricians. What strikes me is that none of those wage gap studies ever seems to question why the wage gap exists. For example they could ask employers or even the employees themselves. It seems they just want to prove discrimination and stop once they have favorable data.

s_baby 13y ago

>I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age) But why not be careful in blindingly accepting it? Alot of it is based on questionable application of statistics. Why not let the data speak for itself rather than providing creative interpretations? For example, the early talking points were based on taking an average without even matching by job type. Ofcourse the part-time nanny doesn't earn as much as an overtime coal miner. That doesn't show a wage-gap.