U.S. pay gap by sex by occupation
statwonk.com
statwonk.com
That's never the case with data visualization. Explanation helps remove ambiguity, and the lack of explanation behind the data source is why there is an excessive amount of criticism in the HN comments.
Regardless, the graph does not certainly speak for itself. There's no obvious correlation between which professions have a better gender pay split than others. If you're trying to make the point that most professions pay women less than men, then you need to justify that. (And provide evidence that the chart represents "most professions.")
That said, did you consider the social and media context into which your work is being injected before you did so?
For example I would like to see the data for "Automotive Body and Related Repairers".
That kind of detail is important because these numbers are de-facto controversial (in that people argue angrily over them a lot).
There is no way to read that graph, or the data behind it, that indicates things should stay the way they are.
You can say there's no way to read it as indicating things should stay the way they are. I believe azth's point is that there's no way to read it as saying anything coherent at all.
(EDIT: Typo.)
Of course, but it's a different problem with a different solution. Isn't that important to know?
If pay is heavily influenced by seniority, and a profession used to be sexist in its hiring practices but no longer is, then it follows that there'll be a significant gender pay gap until the older - mostly male - members of a profession die out.
Of course, there are many ways to read it negatively too. It's so devoid of information that it's just meaningless.
The graph alone doesn't tell us a whole lot, other than women are almost always compensated less than men. There seems to be quite a bit of variation across job functions, which might be unexpected. Understanding why that variation exists might be useful in addressing the perceived problem, and avoiding corporate policies that accidentally make things worse.
For example, if the bulk of pay gap is years of experience, it would be foolhardy to increase starting salary for women; you'd be giving equally qualified men a competitive advantage in hiring they don't need. Similarly, the situation could be understated -- if I'm reading the methodology correctly, CPS data doesn't include independent contractors, since they buy health insurance separately, I expect a number of men forgo insurance entirely and pocket the difference, a gamble few women of child bearing age dare take. Corporate policy here could try to prohibit independent contractors, but that would substantially reverse the trend. Better, IMO, would be single payer health care, or at least an end to the tax subsidy we give employer paid health care.
More dimensions will give us a more nuanced view of reality, and a better grasp on the degree to which the gap is systemic vs personal.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm
I somewhat trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Just as an example of how the numbers might not mean what they appear to: "lawyers" is near the middle of the chart, at around the 82% mark, while "legal occupations" is way at the bottom, around 57%. Does "legal occupations" include lawyers, or is it everything else in the law field aside from lawyers? If lawyers are included, then there's an obvious explanation for the large gap in legal occupations as a whole (namely, more male lawyers, and lawyers being higher-paid than assistants etc., dragging up the median compensation of males in the legal field); if they're not included, then there's a huge and unexplained gender discrepancy in pay among legal assistants etc.
These numbers have a very different meaning if they don't account for seniority, hours worked, or level of responsibility than if they do.
I don't undestand your point. Those are exactly the mechanisms most likely responsible for the pay gap. No employer would ever pay double wage for an y chromosome, but it's not unlikely that preconceived gender roles influence decisions about who gets promoted, who stays home with the kids and stuff like that.
By way of analogy, one could look at rainfall averages over the whole of the US and conclude that some place is/is not in a drought. You could do this by ignoring the obvious confound that different places get different amounts of rainfall. For some places, it would be true. For others, not.
Most people unhappy about the 'pay gap' are indeed implying that employers are paying double (or 21% more) wage for a y chromosome.
If the wage gap rather has to do with decisions employees make themselves (such as who stays home with the kids and thus works fewer hours / has less experience / doesn't get promoted) - then it's not really the problem of employers to contend with.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_ID=22058#sthash.6sSZrCm...
In in simplest form that is like saying "the pay divide between women and men is non-existent when women are effectively men."
Would love to take a look at the souce code of that analysis, but I can't find it. Happen to know where I can get it?
So either misogyny is so widespread that market participants agree to engage in it (collude), or there's some other explanation: risk of maternity leave, etc.. Anything else? Have there been any studies that show how well women do salary-wise once they're beyond child bearing years? Any studies on married vs. non-married men perhaps to see if married men negotiate more in order to support wives while on maternity leave/stay-at-home?
> You have it exactly backwards. In a competitive market, hiring managers have every incentive to negotiate workers to take lower salaries
I never stated anything to the contrary. You're talking about profit-maximizing behavior that we all engage in everyday. What I said had to do with deliberate discrimination, which can only be profitable if the market participants all agree to it.
For me, the pay gap encompasses all sociological factors that lead to women making less than men. When the numbers are squeezed to only compare men and women by exact position, the question "why aren't women holding high power positions?" is implicitly answered with "because women are incapable," and that's a gross untruth. (This is not to say that such research has no value — it is quite important in the context of coming up with solutions.)
If you're quick to wave around the 97% number, you may not be treating this problem with the humility that it deserves.
A more actionable graph making its round on the internet is more helpful than a graph that can fuel and provoke.
When they found a salaray they are confident with, they should up it by 10% percent (say $66k instead of $60k).
One of many reasons women earn less from my experience is that they are risk averse during interviews which accumulates over the years.
Careful now, that may be a commonly held belief but is also wrong. There are far more reasons why the pay gap exists and you can't simply clump it all together and blame it on the stereotypical view that women have an innate inability to negotiate as well as men.
As a sidenote your comment about the ability of women to negotiate was not what I've said. There is a distinction between risk aversity and negotiation ability.
[Edit: Science is murky here, some studies claim to have found evidence, others claim that women are better negotiators. One I found interesting, can't find it, said women are better negotiators but do not start negotiating when it is not clear that they can, but man do negotiate salaries there too.]
Which is to say it removes overt bargaining in favor of making it all covert. Is that really an improvement? I have some doubts.
I read a followup paper shortly after, where they had investigated the details and found that a significant percentage of recently-graduated women had asked for reduced hours and fewer overnight shifts in exchange for lower pay, while many men had volunteered for those sorts of conditions in exchange for higher pay. The gap had actually appeared in response to trends in the lifestyle decisions of employees, rather than discrimination on the part of employers.