8 ms·

I hate that wage disparity is being heralded as a gender issue. It's really a negotiating problem. My coworker and I were hired together, same position, same ex

I hate that wage disparity is being heralded as a gender issue. It's really a negotiating problem. My coworker and I were hired together, same position, same experience, and offered the same salary. When I was offered the position, I asked for $15,000 more and they gave it to me. My coworker didn't ask for more and is therefore now making $15,000 less than me. After six months, I asked for a raise of $5,000. He never asked for a raise. So now he makes $20,000 less than me.

techlibertarian 11y ago
It has to be for them (people who believe there is a gender pay gap) to try and make any change. There are plenty of examples where pay is different regardless of gender: sports and entertainment would be two big ones. With sports, people are payed differently even if they fill the same position on a team. Why? They aren't the same. They bring different skillsets. It's the same with movies. The main character will make more than someone 20 spots down in the credits list. Someone with a well-known name will make even more. All of this wage difference that can occur across genders. But with tech everyone should be paid the same if you share the same title regardless of how different you are or how much value you bring to the table. Edit: To clarify, I have no issue with a company removing any pay difference between employees. I only have an issue with those who think paying people differently is inherently a problem.
- lagadu 11y ago
  > But with tech everyone should be paid the same if you share the same title regardless of how different you are or how much value you bring to the table. Why? Different people bring different value. The same title can have wildly different roles, some positions with the same titles can be much harder to replace than others. For example: at my company my team has a very specialized role that is far outside the domains of all other developers (we're talking about a large multinational here, with thousands of employees). You bet your ass we make a decent chunk more than most other devs, replacing any one of us would cost a ton of money and require over a year of learning about our stuff; replacing one of the devs who works on our main product? In half a year you could get someone to full productivity. In other words: some employees are more expensive to replace than others, either shower them with €€€ or pay a much higher cost when they go work elsewhere.
  - techlibertarian 11y ago
    > Why? Different people bring different value. I didn't actually mean that. I thought the rest of my comment would give context that statement is what the opposing side is saying.
SandB0x 11y ago
$15,000 relative to what level of salary? And at Google or elsewhere?
- bronxcoder 11y ago
  The salary we were offered was $75,000. I won't say the company but it's a large financial data provider.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I remember reading some studies that suggest that this alone, i.e. men being more likely to go and ask for a raise / negotiate their salary, can account for most of the "gender gap".
- danielweber 11y ago
  It can be, but, women are also socially pressured, by both men and women, not to negotiate salary. It's a complex issue and you should avoid people on either side who try to scrunch it down to one sound bite.
  - bronxcoder 11y ago
    The social pressure is a cop out. There's social pressure to drink alcohol, eat fast food, keep up with celebrities, etc. and there are plenty of people that don't do it. I think it's derogatory to women that we treat them like they can't think and act for themselves. Half my team are women and they make more money on average then the guys because they don't take shit from anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. You will never get what you don't ask for. It's in the best interest of every company to pay as little as the employee will take so every employee has to stand up for themselves. We can't keep blaming "society" for things we need to do as individuals for ourselves.
    - marrs 11y ago
      It's in the best interest of every company to pay as little as the employee will take so every employee has to stand up for themselves. That's true, if the company culture you're looking for is a back-stabbing dog-eat-dog climb-over-his-corpse kind of a thing, which some companies undoubtedly are, and some of those I'm sure are financially very successful, but it's not how I want to spend my week. Otherwise I kind of agree with you.
    - deanCommie 11y ago
      There is a difference between blaming society and dealing with thousands of years of social pressure. Social pressure doesn't mean listening to what TV and Movies say you should do. It's dealing with input from your parents, your family, your friends, and your peers. Dismissing the anecdotal evidence of the women on your team, you have no idea of the differences in environmental stimuli women experience vs men. GENERALLY speaking, and no, it's not universal, but on average, women are much less aggressive and assertive in situations where there is risk to social standing or cohesion. And it's not just their self-perception, others (including other women!!) perceive women as negatively for acting in ways that is rewarded in men. I'm sure you've never done it yourself, but the fact is it exists, and it will not go away if we pretend that there is no bias, there is no further progress to be made. Similar to how claiming we live in a post-racism society promotes racism.
Anderkent 11y ago
Most people also agree that in ideal circumstances you wouldn't have to negotiate your wages (because you're effectively being rewarded for your negotiating skill, which is probably completely irrelevant to your actual productivity and value).
- rplnt 11y ago
  At my first "adult" job, I was actually offered more than I asked for, because the employer used this thing where all employees should fit within limits of a median for any given position (they were ranked somehow so many positions shared same rank).
  - keso_77 11y ago
    I had a somewhat similar experience. I was doing good work at a place for about a year and got nothing not even a pat on the back. Next year started to get fed up, had a rough patch in my personal life, started getting short, angry and bitchy with people. Ran into technical difficulties on the project I was working on. My idea for solving it weren't listened to and even worse had people listened it would have been a small disaster because my idea was crap. I started staying home either "working" or just plain calling in sick. When I showed up for work people were walking on eggshells around me. So I was an unproductive douche basically. That year I got the biggest raise I've ever had. Don't know why. About two weeks after that I quit.
- bronxcoder 11y ago
  I would agree but I think there is something about a person who believes in themselves enough to negotiate that can be a differentiator. For instance, my coworker is a total slacker, comes in late and leaves early. I come in early and leave late and take on extra work. Someone who is determined enough to feel they are worth more money will probably statistically work harder. I know it isn't the same for all people, but I would bet that the majority of people who ask for more money work harder.
  - belorn 11y ago
Shinkei 11y ago
Yes! It's not that somebody said, "hey, we can pay this person less simply because they are a woman." It's that the employee themselves may have negotiated for more. Correlation is NOT causation.
- jaawn 11y ago
  Even if this is true, this doesn't magically make it not a gender issue. What if women are generally given less leverage by default in negotiations? What if implicit gender biases have a chilling effect on women's expectations when they go to negotiate? What if women are discouraged from negotiating at all? I think, given what I've seen so far, women are given less leverage to start with, they are subject to the chilling effects of gender biases, and they are discouraged from negotiating more often than not. Sure, a woman can overcome these obstacles, but she shouldn't have these extra obstacles in the first place. The "pay gap" is almost certainly not due to managers thinking "oo I'll pay her less because she's a woman," but it is still indicative of some (more complex) gender inequality.
  - lagadu 11y ago
    If the effect is so widespread, surely it'd be financially irresponsible for any company in their right mind to hire men because women would negotiate less in the middle and long terms.
    - jaawn 11y ago
      I think most managers would see that as an unreliable prediction to make, and not very valuable when making hiring decisions. When hiring someone, you are solving an immediate problem, and not often thinking of the future raises the person is going to negotiate or not negotiate. What you are saying might be true if most hiring was done by CEOs and not department managers.
mikehearn 11y ago
I'm sure there are plenty of ways for this to backfire, but I've always thought one of the most effective ways to eliminate salary bias is for companies to list a role's salary up front, in the job posting, before they've begun interviewing. That way the salary is roughly set before the gender, race, height, physical attractiveness (i.e. any qualities that can cause unconscious bias) is known about whatever candidate a company eventually hires. Obviously it wouldn't outright prevent negotiating - you could still ask for $15k above what they listed in the job posting - but it WOULD help candidates navigate some of the smaller moments during the interview process that can unknowingly undermine their negotiating position (e.g. "How much did you make in your last role?").
- cmiles74 11y ago
  IMHO, managers like to keep salaries private so that they can take advantage of people who are not great at negotiating. My suspicion is that they believe they come out ahead: the few hires who negotiate high pay are outweighed by the many who end up with lower pay. I'd also be surprised if many of them were concerned that minorities or women ending up with lower pay; it seems like a great opportunity to blame these hires for being, again, poor negotiaters.
  - chebum 11y ago
    I work for a company with a fully transparent salary ladder in development department. We know how much every team mate earns. Still negotiation skills come to play. Those with better skills get promoted _faster_.
  - marrs 11y ago
    I suspect it's more because companies can't chose when they have to expand a team. If they need 5 new devs and they need them now, they are in a weak position when negotiating salary. Publicising that a new unproven hire is earning more than existing proven staff is simply going to cause people to leave, which is even worse for the business than not hiring new staff.
- paulhauggis 11y ago
relet 11y ago
It is a negotiating problem, and I think that that is an issue (be it gender-related or not). It rewards competitive thinking over cooperative thinking - people who'd rather work in a fair and equal environment are more likely to accept the same salary they perceive others will get - i.e. usually the proposed salary. Competitive minds have less qualms about claiming higher rewards. Mechanisms like publishing salaries allows for a fairer salary whether you are cooperative or competitive. If you earn more, you probably can justify it in front of colleagues and bosses. Some say cooperation over competition is a 'female' trait, but personally, I feel the same. I am successful at negotiation, but I'd rather know that my colleagues earn the same when they work the same, which is why I try to encourage talk about salaries.
- golemotron 11y ago
  We need to get out of this mindset that competitiveness is wrong. Competitiveness is a creative force. It's a way of seeking and incentivizing value. The problem with open salaries is that it spurs continual second-guessing. And if anyone thinks that open salaries are less susceptible to popularity contests, they're wrong. Assessing value is hard. We'll always get it wrong somehow. Encouraging people to become better negotiators may be the best way to handle salaries. When people make a case for their value and are rewarded in money for it there is at least an extremely grounded avenue for correction. The company will continually look at whether a person is worth that amount of money.
- kriro 11y ago
  I think it's not necessarily an edge if you are competitive instead of cooperative when negotiating. Both styles can work at least according to the theories I've read. The problem is of course some people are generally less likely to negotiate and they are the ones that are shafted.
- latch 11y ago
  Not sure that I buy into the argument that negotiating salary is "competitive thinking". The goal is to reach a compromise that everyone is happy with, which, to me, seems rather cooperative.
wayanon 11y ago
If your employer said to your colleague 'look bronxcoder asked for and received a raise and you both work equally hard so you will get the raise too' - would you be annoyed or happy ? I think is much more ethical to treat people like this but maybe your colleague isn't doing such a good job as you.
- bronxcoder 11y ago
  I spoke to my manager about our pay gap a while ago and he said that I showed much more initiative during the interview process than my coworker did. I have more polished side projects than he has, scored better on the entrance test, etc. He told me that I was worth the extra money but if I hadn't asked for it, he wouldn't have given it to me extra money.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  Happy.
harel 11y ago
Hear hear. There was a big discussion in a London radio station a week or so ago about that, since David Cameron wants to fight for equal pay across genders and have companies over 250 or so people publicise the pay gap across genders. Which by itself sounds a laudable thing but really unrealistic for many trades, and in particular software development. The demand is high, supply is low, and you can have people with less experience than yourself making more because they negotiated better. That has nothing to do with genders as you say - its all down to negotiation skills.
artmageddon 11y ago
I had a similar experience when I was at my last job; a woman and I were being hired for two open spots in a development group, and she was being offered $3,000 less than me(not sure why, especially since she had a Master's whereas I just had a bachelor's). I found this out from the recruiter who was trying to place me, as I had tried to negotiate for another $5k over the offer, but they wouldn't budge since the other person was already $3k under me. I had no way of reaching out to her to try to get her to go higher, too :)
onion2k 11y ago
Would you feel the same way if you worked in a company where 90% of the men were paid 15% less than the women? Would you believe that it was just every individual man being worse at negotiating? Or would you suspect there was something else happening? That's the situation women face.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  There is no wage gap. Men and women are paid roughly the same for the same position. Aggregate differences in gender pay are due to choice of career not discrimination. Time for this myth to die.
  - srpablo 11y ago
    Decades of highly-reproduced social study performed by professionals called a "myth" by a simplistic narrative 1-liner by anonymous commenter on HN. Cool.
    - exstudent2 11y ago
      Actual economists have studied this and found no credible wage gap: http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/ http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/
macspoofing 11y ago
>I hate that wage disparity is being heralded as a gender issue. If wage disparity follows gender lines then it is a gender issue.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  There is no wage disparity across gender lines when you take into account career choice.
- tsiki 11y ago
  What if wage disparity follows the lines in negotiation ability even more strongly, does that make it an issue of negotiation skills then?

techlibertarian 11y ago

It has to be for them (people who believe there is a gender pay gap) to try and make any change. There are plenty of examples where pay is different regardless of gender: sports and entertainment would be two big ones. With sports, people are payed differently even if they fill the same position on a team. Why? They aren't the same. They bring different skillsets. It's the same with movies. The main character will make more than someone 20 spots down in the credits list. Someone with a well-known name will make even more. All of this wage difference that can occur across genders. But with tech everyone should be paid the same if you share the same title regardless of how different you are or how much value you bring to the table. Edit: To clarify, I have no issue with a company removing any pay difference between employees. I only have an issue with those who think paying people differently is inherently a problem.

lagadu 11y ago
> But with tech everyone should be paid the same if you share the same title regardless of how different you are or how much value you bring to the table. Why? Different people bring different value. The same title can have wildly different roles, some positions with the same titles can be much harder to replace than others. For example: at my company my team has a very specialized role that is far outside the domains of all other developers (we're talking about a large multinational here, with thousands of employees). You bet your ass we make a decent chunk more than most other devs, replacing any one of us would cost a ton of money and require over a year of learning about our stuff; replacing one of the devs who works on our main product? In half a year you could get someone to full productivity. In other words: some employees are more expensive to replace than others, either shower them with €€€ or pay a much higher cost when they go work elsewhere.
- techlibertarian 11y ago
  > Why? Different people bring different value. I didn't actually mean that. I thought the rest of my comment would give context that statement is what the opposing side is saying.

SandB0x 11y ago

$15,000 relative to what level of salary? And at Google or elsewhere?

bronxcoder 11y ago
The salary we were offered was $75,000. I won't say the company but it's a large financial data provider.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I remember reading some studies that suggest that this alone, i.e. men being more likely to go and ask for a raise / negotiate their salary, can account for most of the "gender gap".

danielweber 11y ago
It can be, but, women are also socially pressured, by both men and women, not to negotiate salary. It's a complex issue and you should avoid people on either side who try to scrunch it down to one sound bite.
- bronxcoder 11y ago
  The social pressure is a cop out. There's social pressure to drink alcohol, eat fast food, keep up with celebrities, etc. and there are plenty of people that don't do it. I think it's derogatory to women that we treat them like they can't think and act for themselves. Half my team are women and they make more money on average then the guys because they don't take shit from anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. You will never get what you don't ask for. It's in the best interest of every company to pay as little as the employee will take so every employee has to stand up for themselves. We can't keep blaming "society" for things we need to do as individuals for ourselves.
  - marrs 11y ago
    It's in the best interest of every company to pay as little as the employee will take so every employee has to stand up for themselves. That's true, if the company culture you're looking for is a back-stabbing dog-eat-dog climb-over-his-corpse kind of a thing, which some companies undoubtedly are, and some of those I'm sure are financially very successful, but it's not how I want to spend my week. Otherwise I kind of agree with you.
  - deanCommie 11y ago
    There is a difference between blaming society and dealing with thousands of years of social pressure. Social pressure doesn't mean listening to what TV and Movies say you should do. It's dealing with input from your parents, your family, your friends, and your peers. Dismissing the anecdotal evidence of the women on your team, you have no idea of the differences in environmental stimuli women experience vs men. GENERALLY speaking, and no, it's not universal, but on average, women are much less aggressive and assertive in situations where there is risk to social standing or cohesion. And it's not just their self-perception, others (including other women!!) perceive women as negatively for acting in ways that is rewarded in men. I'm sure you've never done it yourself, but the fact is it exists, and it will not go away if we pretend that there is no bias, there is no further progress to be made. Similar to how claiming we live in a post-racism society promotes racism.

Anderkent 11y ago

Most people also agree that in ideal circumstances you wouldn't have to negotiate your wages (because you're effectively being rewarded for your negotiating skill, which is probably completely irrelevant to your actual productivity and value).

rplnt 11y ago
At my first "adult" job, I was actually offered more than I asked for, because the employer used this thing where all employees should fit within limits of a median for any given position (they were ranked somehow so many positions shared same rank).
- keso_77 11y ago
  I had a somewhat similar experience. I was doing good work at a place for about a year and got nothing not even a pat on the back. Next year started to get fed up, had a rough patch in my personal life, started getting short, angry and bitchy with people. Ran into technical difficulties on the project I was working on. My idea for solving it weren't listened to and even worse had people listened it would have been a small disaster because my idea was crap. I started staying home either "working" or just plain calling in sick. When I showed up for work people were walking on eggshells around me. So I was an unproductive douche basically. That year I got the biggest raise I've ever had. Don't know why. About two weeks after that I quit.
bronxcoder 11y ago
I would agree but I think there is something about a person who believes in themselves enough to negotiate that can be a differentiator. For instance, my coworker is a total slacker, comes in late and leaves early. I come in early and leave late and take on extra work. Someone who is determined enough to feel they are worth more money will probably statistically work harder. I know it isn't the same for all people, but I would bet that the majority of people who ask for more money work harder.
- belorn 11y ago

Shinkei 11y ago

Yes! It's not that somebody said, "hey, we can pay this person less simply because they are a woman." It's that the employee themselves may have negotiated for more. Correlation is NOT causation.

jaawn 11y ago
Even if this is true, this doesn't magically make it not a gender issue. What if women are generally given less leverage by default in negotiations? What if implicit gender biases have a chilling effect on women's expectations when they go to negotiate? What if women are discouraged from negotiating at all? I think, given what I've seen so far, women are given less leverage to start with, they are subject to the chilling effects of gender biases, and they are discouraged from negotiating more often than not. Sure, a woman can overcome these obstacles, but she shouldn't have these extra obstacles in the first place. The "pay gap" is almost certainly not due to managers thinking "oo I'll pay her less because she's a woman," but it is still indicative of some (more complex) gender inequality.
- lagadu 11y ago
  If the effect is so widespread, surely it'd be financially irresponsible for any company in their right mind to hire men because women would negotiate less in the middle and long terms.
  - jaawn 11y ago
    I think most managers would see that as an unreliable prediction to make, and not very valuable when making hiring decisions. When hiring someone, you are solving an immediate problem, and not often thinking of the future raises the person is going to negotiate or not negotiate. What you are saying might be true if most hiring was done by CEOs and not department managers.

mikehearn 11y ago

I'm sure there are plenty of ways for this to backfire, but I've always thought one of the most effective ways to eliminate salary bias is for companies to list a role's salary up front, in the job posting, before they've begun interviewing. That way the salary is roughly set before the gender, race, height, physical attractiveness (i.e. any qualities that can cause unconscious bias) is known about whatever candidate a company eventually hires. Obviously it wouldn't outright prevent negotiating - you could still ask for $15k above what they listed in the job posting - but it WOULD help candidates navigate some of the smaller moments during the interview process that can unknowingly undermine their negotiating position (e.g. "How much did you make in your last role?").

cmiles74 11y ago
IMHO, managers like to keep salaries private so that they can take advantage of people who are not great at negotiating. My suspicion is that they believe they come out ahead: the few hires who negotiate high pay are outweighed by the many who end up with lower pay. I'd also be surprised if many of them were concerned that minorities or women ending up with lower pay; it seems like a great opportunity to blame these hires for being, again, poor negotiaters.
- chebum 11y ago
  I work for a company with a fully transparent salary ladder in development department. We know how much every team mate earns. Still negotiation skills come to play. Those with better skills get promoted _faster_.
- marrs 11y ago
  I suspect it's more because companies can't chose when they have to expand a team. If they need 5 new devs and they need them now, they are in a weak position when negotiating salary. Publicising that a new unproven hire is earning more than existing proven staff is simply going to cause people to leave, which is even worse for the business than not hiring new staff.
paulhauggis 11y ago

relet 11y ago

It is a negotiating problem, and I think that that is an issue (be it gender-related or not). It rewards competitive thinking over cooperative thinking - people who'd rather work in a fair and equal environment are more likely to accept the same salary they perceive others will get - i.e. usually the proposed salary. Competitive minds have less qualms about claiming higher rewards. Mechanisms like publishing salaries allows for a fairer salary whether you are cooperative or competitive. If you earn more, you probably can justify it in front of colleagues and bosses. Some say cooperation over competition is a 'female' trait, but personally, I feel the same. I am successful at negotiation, but I'd rather know that my colleagues earn the same when they work the same, which is why I try to encourage talk about salaries.

golemotron 11y ago
We need to get out of this mindset that competitiveness is wrong. Competitiveness is a creative force. It's a way of seeking and incentivizing value. The problem with open salaries is that it spurs continual second-guessing. And if anyone thinks that open salaries are less susceptible to popularity contests, they're wrong. Assessing value is hard. We'll always get it wrong somehow. Encouraging people to become better negotiators may be the best way to handle salaries. When people make a case for their value and are rewarded in money for it there is at least an extremely grounded avenue for correction. The company will continually look at whether a person is worth that amount of money.
kriro 11y ago
I think it's not necessarily an edge if you are competitive instead of cooperative when negotiating. Both styles can work at least according to the theories I've read. The problem is of course some people are generally less likely to negotiate and they are the ones that are shafted.
latch 11y ago
Not sure that I buy into the argument that negotiating salary is "competitive thinking". The goal is to reach a compromise that everyone is happy with, which, to me, seems rather cooperative.

wayanon 11y ago

If your employer said to your colleague 'look bronxcoder asked for and received a raise and you both work equally hard so you will get the raise too' - would you be annoyed or happy ? I think is much more ethical to treat people like this but maybe your colleague isn't doing such a good job as you.

bronxcoder 11y ago
I spoke to my manager about our pay gap a while ago and he said that I showed much more initiative during the interview process than my coworker did. I have more polished side projects than he has, scored better on the entrance test, etc. He told me that I was worth the extra money but if I hadn't asked for it, he wouldn't have given it to me extra money.
pessimizer 11y ago
Happy.

harel 11y ago

Hear hear. There was a big discussion in a London radio station a week or so ago about that, since David Cameron wants to fight for equal pay across genders and have companies over 250 or so people publicise the pay gap across genders. Which by itself sounds a laudable thing but really unrealistic for many trades, and in particular software development. The demand is high, supply is low, and you can have people with less experience than yourself making more because they negotiated better. That has nothing to do with genders as you say - its all down to negotiation skills.

artmageddon 11y ago

I had a similar experience when I was at my last job; a woman and I were being hired for two open spots in a development group, and she was being offered $3,000 less than me(not sure why, especially since she had a Master's whereas I just had a bachelor's). I found this out from the recruiter who was trying to place me, as I had tried to negotiate for another $5k over the offer, but they wouldn't budge since the other person was already $3k under me. I had no way of reaching out to her to try to get her to go higher, too :)

onion2k 11y ago

Would you feel the same way if you worked in a company where 90% of the men were paid 15% less than the women? Would you believe that it was just every individual man being worse at negotiating? Or would you suspect there was something else happening? That's the situation women face.

exstudent2 11y ago
There is no wage gap. Men and women are paid roughly the same for the same position. Aggregate differences in gender pay are due to choice of career not discrimination. Time for this myth to die.
- srpablo 11y ago
  Decades of highly-reproduced social study performed by professionals called a "myth" by a simplistic narrative 1-liner by anonymous commenter on HN. Cool.
  - exstudent2 11y ago
    Actual economists have studied this and found no credible wage gap: http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/ http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

macspoofing 11y ago

>I hate that wage disparity is being heralded as a gender issue. If wage disparity follows gender lines then it is a gender issue.

exstudent2 11y ago
There is no wage disparity across gender lines when you take into account career choice.
tsiki 11y ago
What if wage disparity follows the lines in negotiation ability even more strongly, does that make it an issue of negotiation skills then?