I inhabit a universe in which pretty much all academic studies (including the US department of Labor's review) find the idea that women get paid 77% for equal work is a sham.
You're the one with the delusional anti-scientific views.
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Gender Pay Gap - Not Actually that Big?
- Thread starter JonA
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I inhabit a universe in which pretty much all academic studies (including the US department of Labor's review) find the idea that women get paid 77% for equal work is a sham.
You're the one with the delusional anti-scientific views.
JonA
Senior Member
The article in the OP does not state, as some have supposed, that there are different reasons for the gender pay gap but that in reality the gender pay gap doesn't much exist.
It claims that once we compare like with like (e.g., similar hours worked in similar positions) the gap all but disappears and that what accounts for the larger overall gap is something else - in which discrimination may play a role or may not (for example, not granting maternity leave - and the domino effect that sets off - is much less about sexism and a lot more about general corporate greed).
From this the authors offer alternative solutions to the problem from those typically offered.
The topic of this thread is not 'men are pigs vs. quit your whining, bitch' as many on both sides of the discussion have tried to turn it into.
It is actually a topic about how we want our societies to look and what we can do to get them there.
It claims that once we compare like with like (e.g., similar hours worked in similar positions) the gap all but disappears and that what accounts for the larger overall gap is something else - in which discrimination may play a role or may not (for example, not granting maternity leave - and the domino effect that sets off - is much less about sexism and a lot more about general corporate greed).
From this the authors offer alternative solutions to the problem from those typically offered.
The topic of this thread is not 'men are pigs vs. quit your whining, bitch' as many on both sides of the discussion have tried to turn it into.
It is actually a topic about how we want our societies to look and what we can do to get them there.
Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. When human males and females exhibit that inherent dimorphism, why is that considered a problem? If the topic is how we want our society to look, isn't permitting males and females to make their own choices the best way to go? And if differences arise when males and females are allowed to freely exercise their preferences, so what? Wouldn't that be anticipated in a sexually dimorphic species? Nothing in Western society prohibits a female from entering a mostly male occupation; and the reverse is true as well. Some occupations pay more than others. But that is not gender discrimination, it's just the value of the occupation.
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE[/YOUTUBE]
Isn't this kind of like saying, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you," when, in fact, the bear is a teddy and we can both outrun it easily?
The fact that men and women may answer differently is only relevant if all jobs operate at the very edge of skill level, because in most cases there is significant overlap in the bell curve. Including in strength and height.
I recall someone telling me that such and such a lifting job should only go to men because they are stronger. But the job was sticking small parts into little bins, the heaviest of which was maybe 5 pounds. Who gives a shit if "men are usually stronger" when the job doesn't even allow you space to stack up 20 of them and move them at once? Five pounds. Over and over again. "It's a physical lifting job." Uh-huh.
You mean, other than discrimination?
The kind where I was not allowed to take auto mechanics/shop in high school but the boys were? (I made a big stinky SJW fuss about it and finally got in - the only girl in my high school to take auto mechanics.)
The kind where I was not allowed to get certain lifting jobs because I was female, even though I could lift everything required?
The kind where when I did get a job as a security guard so that I could study at work, I was badgered daily by other guards who wanted to make sure I knew I wasn't wanted? They let the boys study, but they bothered me daily.
The kind where I was told to dress in a skirt for a formal interview (by the personnel dept) and then taken on a plant tour that included a grated catwalk above the production floor? Or (different place) also told to dress formally with heels and skirt and then the tour went through a paint booth that required a two-legged tyvek suit? In both cases, I would have worn pants and flats except that I was specifically told it would be formal and include a VP and skirts were the dress code. So I just appear ill-equipped, when in fact I would never have chosen such a stupid dress code?
The kind where I was denied a technology installation job because the other engineer was male and the boss worried about us traveling together?
The kind where your negotiation partner (opponent?) refuses to talk to you and will only address his comments to your male assistant?
There is PLENTY in western society that prevents females from entering mostly male occupations.
Everyone can come up with an anecdotal story (and, of course, there is no way to verify anecdotes on the internet). But that does not equate to societal discrimination. Otherwise, the female-male gap in teachers, home care workers, nurses, publishers, etc. is due to discrimination, too. Smash the Matriarchy!
Isn't this kind of like saying, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you," when, in fact, the bear is a teddy and we can both outrun it easily?
The fact that men and women may answer differently is only relevant if all jobs operate at the very edge of skill level, because in most cases there is significant overlap in the bell curve. Including in strength and height.
I recall someone telling me that such and such a lifting job should only go to men because they are stronger. But the job was sticking small parts into little bins, the heaviest of which was maybe 5 pounds. Who gives a shit if "men are usually stronger" when the job doesn't even allow you space to stack up 20 of them and move them at once? Five pounds. Over and over again. "It's a physical lifting job." Uh-huh.
The fact is that women are better at some jobs and men better at others. My wife is better at sales than I am but I have skills that she doesn't. She makes more money than me. Should I start a case at work about me not making as much money because I am a man?
Playball40
Veteran Member
Nothing in the law, perhaps, but nothing in society is completely false. The males currently in the occupation often create such barriers of hostility to women competing with them. If those men control the industry then like it or not, they have established a barrier. I see it happen to women engineers, contractors, brokers, scientists frequently.
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No, people are better at some jobs. I am a woman and I am SHIT at sales. My son, on the other hand, could sell an air conditioning in the arctic.The fact is that women are better at some jobs and men better at others. My wife is better at sales than I am but I have skills that she doesn't. She makes more money than me. Should I start a case at work about me not making as much money because I am a man?Isn't this kind of like saying, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you," when, in fact, the bear is a teddy and we can both outrun it easily?
The fact that men and women may answer differently is only relevant if all jobs operate at the very edge of skill level, because in most cases there is significant overlap in the bell curve. Including in strength and height.
I recall someone telling me that such and such a lifting job should only go to men because they are stronger. But the job was sticking small parts into little bins, the heaviest of which was maybe 5 pounds. Who gives a shit if "men are usually stronger" when the job doesn't even allow you space to stack up 20 of them and move them at once? Five pounds. Over and over again. "It's a physical lifting job." Uh-huh.
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This happens so often. It is beyond frustrating.
Fuck, then start your own business. Men and women have equal economic freedom. No occupation can be cordoned off from one gender or the other. Feel there's a ceiling where you're working? Then go out on your own, or with colleagues, whatever. Or jump to a competitor. Or do something different. I did that. Many, many, many people do that. A business, any business, is a legal fiction. It's existence depends on convincing consumers to give it money in exchange for goods and services. Create your own and convince consumers to give you money rather than a competitor. Just, to hell with these pity parties. If you're not willing to take the risk of operating your own business, then quit trying to find excuses and blame others for failing make as much as someone else.
Achwienichtig
Member
Didn't you earlier dismiss somebody's opinion because their evidence was only anecdotal? Look at what you're doing now. You're saying that your anecdote is how the entire universe must be. If other people have differing anecdotes, they live in a delusional universe.
JonA
Senior Member
And I think this is the kind of stuff the authors of the study wanted to expose: the discrimination doesn't come (at least not most of it) at the point of determining unequal pay for equal work; the discrimination comes at the point of getting access to the equal work.
The message is that the stuff pay equality advocates have been pushing for (wage transparency, etc.) doesn't actually get to the source of the unequal pay and so very little will ever change unless the true causes are identified and addressed.
ronburgundy
Contributor
Wrong. The gender pay gap is an empirical fact and the OP article confirms it. The only question is why the gap exists.
The claim that it does not much exist is a purely an inferential, assumption-ridden conclusion reached by woefully inadequate efforts to explain away the empirical reality by abuse of inferential statistical techniques. Note, "inferential" is not my personal view of their technique, it is the standard definitional term for what they are doing.
Wrong again. This is a common but logically inaccurate way of describing the results of mutliple-regression techniques. It makes it sound like it actually takes men and women who are the same on all variables and looks specifcally at their pay difference. IT does nothing of the sort. If their were no men and women with comparable values on on other variables, the analysis would give you the same result as in the OP article. This is because the results are not about what actually is true, but what (based on numerous assumptions) is inferred/predicted to be true (that is why its called "Inferential Statistics) in a hypothetical world in which men and women were on average equal on all other variables. It tells you about a fictional world. To illustrate, it also tells you what people who are half man and half women get paid, even though they don't exist, and tells you what people at age zero to 16 and over 100 would get paid, even though none are in the study.
So, returning to the hypothetical world which doesn't exist, in which men and women average equal hours, etc.., and equal pay. What does the analysis say is the cause behind this world having equal pay and equal hours, etc..? The answer is that it says absolutely nothing about why. It is just as likely that the reason for this prediction is that a world where women worked the same hours and time at job would be a world where gender did not cause the lower pay that causes women to work less and change jobs.
IF the women who worked less hours were men, they would be paid more. This is a perfectly accurate description of what the results show and no less valid than framing it as "If women worked more hours, they would be paid more." It is a matter of phrasing and deciding which predictor variables get cast as the lead. IT is a kind of figure/ground issue and the decision is arbitrary and assumption based.
We both agree that causality must be argued for outside a correlational model. Yet you continue to regard gender discrimination as the better account of the variance without evidencing it. An appeal to "parsimony" fails.
The clearest and most obvious relation between age and pay is that forty year olds in the labour market make more than twenty year olds in the labour market. One would indeed go to a 'host of assumptions' to explain this (seniority in roles, for example).
Your making my case for me. You do not believe gender causes pay differences; you believe gender discrimination causes pay differences. You already have mediating effects.
It's the effect size of that response that we ought to be concerned with, not that it exists.
One can look for a 'gender discrimination of the gaps' all she likes -- but it makes no sense at all to not control for variables known to impact pay (such as industry and hours worked).
That does not mean 'gender discrimination' has been eliminated as a contender to explain the pay gap, as you say, but it could shift the location of intervention (if intervention is desirable).
No good evidence? Are we on the same planet?
No, I am pointing out a clear biological difference between men and women that is unrelated to 'discrimination' by employers or anyone else.
Gender does not equal genes. There will always be mediating effects (even if they are all 'biological').
To use the language of 'discrimination' here is to muddy the waters. I am not worth as much to my organisation as the big boss is, so our employers have 'discriminated' based on service value and paid her more. That is not the kind of discrimination anyone ought be concerned with.
No: that is not the most parsimonious because assuming gender discrimination is a mediating variable.
The employer is doing no such thing. You are assuming facts not in evidence. Factoring in seniority is not factoring in gender. Factoring in sales volumes is not factoring in gender.
First, it isn't more parsimonious, as I've already explained. You are proposing a mediating effect of gender discrimination and it's the gender discrimination that causes the pay difference.
Second, if you believe paying a toilet cleaner who works twenty hours a week is 'discriminating' against cleaners who work ten hours a week, you are deliberately conflating the kind of discrimination we ought to be concerned with (paying someone less merely because of their gender) and the kind of discrimination we ought not be concerned with (paying someone less because they produced less work).
You are obsessed with parsimony in a complex world.
Think of it this way: in a world without gender, there would still be individual pay differences. Surgeons would still get more than toilet cleaners. In any such world, you'd need the exact same 'complex' model you bristle at to explain pay differences between individuals.
Of course it is relevant. How could you imagine something that directly affects labour market attachment as irrelevant?
You are simply pushing back the locus of explanation. Why assume the gender pay gap at time 1 is due to discrimination?
Is it not an established fact that seniority in a role is related to pay?
Except you couldn't do that. "Gender discrimination" is no more an explanation than anything else until you explain and argue for the causal mechanisms outside a correlational model.
ronburgundy
Contributor
I was asked for specifically for anecdotal information and I gave it. I don't base my general conclusion on such anecdotes, but on actually understanding the relevant science and not abusing purely correlational data to make causal assertions it cannot possibly support no matter how much complex inferential stats are presented to confuse novices into thinking their faith is fact.
Achwienichtig
Member
This was along the lines of what I took away from it. I have no doubt that discrimination against women in the workforce exists. However, the wage gap need not be the result of direct wage discrimination, though I think it is in some cases. Wage differential is interwoven into greater societal gender roles and expectations, which are problematic in themselves.
Achwienichtig
Member
Fair enough. Just as long as you not generalizing too broadly from your own experience. Of course, that experience does rule out the possibility that there is no gender discrimination.
Let's not lose track of where we are here based on what facts and data tell us.
The original formulation of the grievance is "Women get paid 77 cents on the dollar for equal work".
But the data unequivocally show women do not do "equal work". They work fewer hours. They are more likely to work part time. Surely there is no argument that working 20 hours at X is equal to working 40 hours at X. Any rational reasonable person would expect someone who worked less to be paid less. Here, the "77 cents on the dollar for equal work" lie is already dashed. I don't need to argue causation. It is objectively not true.
At this point ronburgundy shifts his goalposts to preserve his preferred fantasy. The argument becomes "women work fewer hours because of workplace discrimination".
This grievance is now not a "wage gap" but an "hours gap". It's now got to be something more like "Women are offered 77% of the hours men are offered, but when they do work the discrimination that manifests itself with them being offered fewer hours does not cause them to be paid less". This is quite odd when you think about it. That's a strange way for discrimination to manifest itself.
But, lo, the data also give us further insight as to why women work fewer hours. Data also suggest young single women experience no "wage gap" or "hours gap". Data tell us women who have children are far more likely to stay home with children than men. Now our issue is not a "wage gap" or even an "hours gap", it's a "stay at home with kids gap".
The ever nimble ronburgundy shifts the goalposts again. The "stay at home with kids gap" is a product of what, you guessed it: workplace discrimination.
The absurdity is now so apparent that only the true-believer can believe.
The evil discriminating man-bosses discrimination does not manifest itself as lower pay for the same work, or lower hours for women without kids, it only manifests itself in ways that cause a women to want to stay home with kids once she has them.
That's some fascinating discrimination there. I can't imagine how that could be done, yet apparently it so pervasive that it occurs persistently throughout our economy.
Now, with the "77 cents on the dollar for equal work" myth safely in its grave, maybe we can think about causation for the "stay at home with kids gap". Is there any other possible explanation as to why women are more likely to want to stay home with kids?
Maybe we could find someone who is a mother or had a mother and ask them whether they might have some reason to have stayed home besides workplace discrimination.
JonA
Senior Member
If the gap doesn't exist because of any discrimination in pay, then it is difficult to call it a 'gender pay gap'.
Yes. And that 'more' is 3 cents. That 'more' does not and cannot account for the discrepancy between men and women in terms of what gets put on their 1040s at the end of the year.
Which is supported by the article. Also, if they worked in similar jobs.
The question then becomes, 'why don't women work more hours in more similar jobs?'
The phrasing is another way of saying 'view point'; and view point matters because it drives policy.
Not arbitrary at all. If the root cause of women having smaller numbers on their 1040s isn't making less per hour doing similar work, then passing laws that try to target employers paying women less per hour (how the pay for almost all employees is figured) for doing similar work will have no effect. Knowing the root cause is very important - the article, and all the evidence, suggests very clearly that the root the cause is not employers choosing to pay women less for equal work.
But do you have any evidence it's because they're choosing not to work given the pay rate?
And why would they choose to work part time because of lower pay??