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Comment by rifung | Hacker News Reader

> This makes the law seem even more ridiculous to me.

Why is it more ridiculous? We already have laws against discrimination based on gender. If the issue isn't being solved, while being hands off, it seems natural to try something different.

> It feels like they treating us like children incapable of tying our own shoes or something

Well it does seem employers are incapable of eliminating the gender wage gap so perhaps the treatment is appropriate. Not that I blame them.. being unbiased is extremely difficult and requires a conscious effort.

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Except for the fact that male and female pay for the same job, and experience level are statistically the same and there is no actual pay gap.

The $0.79 on the $1 shit has been debunked a million times yet is still persists for some reason.

The last good study I read showed a gap of something like 5% which was in the statistical margin and was largely accounted for by negotiation tactics.

For an anecdote I (a male) earn less than many other men in my same job, and same experience level. Why because I am TERRIBLE at salary negotiation, (or any other price negotiation, i.e I prefer the CarMax pay what the sticker says model to the haggle over every last $1 model)

At the same time, I have been involved in the hiring of both male and female employees in the IT world, never once at any time I have ever seen, heard or been a part of discussions where a person would be offered to get a lower salary simply because of their gender.

Every hiring process I have ever been involved in the Pay scale is always set long before we even have any applicants. We have a budget, wages for each position are set based on the budget the gender or personal circumstances of the person have no factor in it. We have to find someone that not only fits the job requirements, but also the salary requirements. That can be a challenge, and we have had to pass on candidates simply because we could not meet their salary demands.

Moving jobs is the best way to get a large pay increase, especially if you're underpaid in your current job. Once you tell them how much you currently make, you've screwed yourself. This is a negotiating tactic used by employers to know how much they'll set as their upper bound for pay.

Your employer may have strict pay bounds set, but a lot of places don't. The pay can vary highly between candidates, especially if the candidates are weak negotiators. If you disclose your current salary, you're a weak negotiator, but employers put a lot of pressure on you to disclose it. I tend to tell employers that I'm not allowed to disclose my salary, which ends that part of the conversation, but most people don't know to do this.

This law benefits you just as much as it does women.

I dont disagree with much of what you said, I am mainly speaking out against the pay gap myth.

As far as disclosing pay, I alway deflect it and treat the question as them asking me what my salary expectations are, which likely ends up doing the same thing, but I dont think I have ever told a company what my salary was at a previous job

My current employer never asked, they said "this job pays X per year" did get a small increase over that first offer but not alot.

At this point in my career though (17 years in) I focus less on raw salary and more on working environment, I would rather take a lower salary to have a care free easy environment than make 15% more but have a high stress high demanding employer. Been there done that... not for me.

> I am mainly speaking out against the pay gap myth

I'm sure you're very smart and know better than all[1] the current[2] research[3].

[1] https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/...

[2] https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/gender-equality-research-201...

[3] https://www.strath.ac.uk/business/research/research/highligh...

[1] - this is a good report, but it uses a different definition of "gender pay gap" than parent - it does not analyze a "pay gap" for the same position/same experience(i.e. gender discrimination), but rather the aggregated difference in payments men and women receive for their work, which are affected by a multitude of factors(referenced in the study) - men working more, full-time, longer careers, different types of jobs, etc..

[2] - there are no sources or data analysis in their report, it's just infographics. Even then, their definition of the gender pay gap is similar to [1]:

"The report flags a clear risk, however: the choices that young women undergrads are making now are setting them up to enter the workforce with fewer digital skills, less mentoring advice and lower interest in pursuing high-paying jobs, compared with their male peers. "

"Adding to this imbalance is the fact that women are much less likely than men to have paid work (50 percent and 76 percent, respectively). This contributes to a hidden pay gap that increases the economic inequities between women and men. Based on the hidden pay gap, our research shows that for every $100 a woman earns, a man earns $258. Since women are usually responsible for the bulk of unpaid work, such as child care and housekeeping, the effects of the hidden pay gap for them are immense."

[3] - link to report is dead

At a minimum it does appear I have a better ability to read and understand what I am reading because none of those sources refute what i stated.

Number 1 is not comparing Equal Work and experiance, infact one of their summary bullet points is how part time women earn less than Full Time men... ummm yea. Part time people earn less than Full Time people.. That is not a earth shattering fact nor it is a symptom of sexism

They also point out that Part time women earn MORE than part time men...

Further most of the study looks at Overall wages in general with out comparing actual job roles to job role. This is a general misdirection often used by people that want to invent sexism where there is none. The fact that women often choose careers in fields that are traditionally lowering paying like Social Work, or Teaching is not a symptom of sexism

Number 2 is not a study

Number 3 is 404 page not found

> Once you tell them how much you currently make, you've screwed yourself.

This is the truth. When I finished my CS degree and started looking for work, I had a recruiter tell me I shouldn't expect any pay over my previous job, and since my previous job was a software testing internship for $12.75/hr, I shouldn't expect more than $15/hr or so. I said "Yeah, no. I'm not taking a software engineering job for barely over $30k/year." He insisted that's how the industry works, even though my previous job was just an internship and wasn't even an engineering position.

I basically told him to pound sand, especially after he told me that at that position, I'd be expected to work 45-50 hours/week. Sure, I needed work, but I wasn't destitute.

In India, your resume qualifies for interview only if you disclose your previous salary.

I don't think its mandated by law, but thats's how the system works anyway.

I've been through 2 employers and working at my third. I've never disclosed my salary pre-interview. All three jobs at Bangalore, India. So no, that's not how the system works.

That is absolutely how it works.

Unless you disclose your prior CTC no one will call you for your interview.

Start ups are a different case.

The best response to 'here's a penny more than you were making' is multiple offers.

The second best response is 'your offer is better, but inspires zero loyalty. If you want me to stay for longer than it takes for your competitors to get back to me with an offer, you'll improve that offer.'

> The $0.79 on the $1 shit has been debunked a million times yet is still persists for some reason.

Because a certain group of people insists that the original $0.77 on the $1 statistic DID control for career choice and the like...even though it didn't. Any claims to the contrary are obviously misogynistic lies continuing the patriarchy. \eyeroll\

I've always said...if the pay gap really WAS that big, then why would employers bother to hire men?

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/05/business/the-quiet-allure-...

That did in fact happen and was being done by economists. This was about 35 years ago though, so I have no idea if the effect is still in place

That questioning of the gap being that big makes me think about this exchange Milton Friedman had with some college students in like the 70s or something regarding equal pay for equal work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIpQ7YguGE

> I've always said...if the pay gap really WAS that big, then why would employers bother to hire men?

The proposed answer is that the employers are sexist. Even large corporations don't always act rationally.

> The $0.79 on the $1 shit has been debunked a million times yet is still persists for some reason.

It persists because it's a real average.

And uh, it's not the case that the pay gap has been disproven in many industries.

Yes, it's a real average that proves that a female teacher makes less than a male mechanical engineer. How does that help anyone, other than pushing a false narrative?

Well, it might tell us the shape of discrimination is less overt and more structural. Why exactly was it that out of my CS graduating class of 100 there was 1 woman?

Given the supplied anecdote, it is because 99 men and 1 woman completed the requirements for a CS degree, for whatever reasons the individuals decided go do so.

Let's step aside the point of generalizing one anecdote to be representative, however. Can we really assign the disparity solely to microaggressions against women? Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49? What is the threshold of equality with respect to noise?

I don't... don't really get why the above poster's observation is not inline given national graduation rates for CS. Seems within the expected distribution, no?

> Can we really assign the disparity solely to microaggressions against women? Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49? What is the threshold of equality with respect to noise?

Why don't you use your powerful male thoughts to do some basic bayesian modeling and come up with some proposals? Many people have so maybe you can borrow their work, if that sounds like too much effort.

But hey, to do an analysis we need some data! Let me provide you with a recent and impartial source: https://nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsb20161/#/

Here's a fun one: Stats suggest in the US that men:women declare majors ~3:1 across all engineering disciplines but ~2:1 in computer science at the outset. However, when we look at graduation rates proportional to the whole of their class in 2016 we saw: computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%).

Computer science has an abnormally high attrition rate despite a increased chance of declaration for major. Other similarly complex and abstract disciplines such as mathematics (which CS leans upon heavily to get any real work done) do not have such a falloff.

So gosh. Where do YOU draw the line? Care to show us the work for how you derived it? I'd love to know.

I could probably get numbers for major vocational education startups. I think I might go pursue that. Since many of those are online, they'll have less noise from on-campus harassment.

> Can we really assign the disparity solely to microaggressions against women?

No. Did I suggest that? I don't think I did. All I mentioned was structural disparity, which is likely multivariate. Microaggressions is a strange thing to jump to from the conversation, compared to say, the effect of video game marketing on preferences, the attitudes of parents and guidance counselors, or parental fears about internet predators and private PCs for children.

I don't have data readily available on this, but there weren't that many women declaring CS to start with, and I kind of expect that if we divided CS freshmen men into 'has written a program before' and 'has not', attrition rates for women would track the 'has not' fairly closely.

> Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49?

I don't know where the bright line is, and there probably isn't one. If it exists, it'd probably exist be between those to ratios. But the fact is it's more imbalanced than either ratio suggested, which should probably motivate policy changes more strongly.

It tells us either: there are a handful of professions that are drawing down the average. OR: That a pervasive wage gap exists.

Either is unacceptable, don't you agree?

Why are you so eager to assert the labor of women is obviously worth less?

> Why are you so eager to assert the labor of women is obviously worth less?

What an insane and condescending assumption.

I support focusing effort on training women for high paying jobs. I support researching why women don't study STEM degrees as much as men, and working to mitigate that gap.

I do not, however, support paying those that study less valuable "feel-good" degrees more money just because more women choose to go down that path.

And finally, I don't need to actively "support" women making the same as men within the same professions, because that's already the reality we live in.

I don't agree that every profession should make the same amount of money. If that's what you find unacceptable, I find it acceptable.

Which false narrative is this? That women get paid less?

If an average exists then an average exists. We can talk about how it's structured, but the existence of an average pay gap is hard to dispute at this point.

If you find that narrative offensive, ask yourself why. I suspect the motivations are not very laudable.

> Except for the fact that male and female pay for the same job, and experience level are statistically the same and there is no actual pay gap.

Sure, but if women have a harder time getting promoted then they also have a harder time getting the same job and experience. Thus, even if women are being paid the same when they have the same job and experience, the discrimination still exists and they are still as a group prone to being paid less. Perhaps we should name it something more appropriate than wage gap though since the nuance is lost.

http://www.businessinsider.com/women-are-less-likely-to-get-...

That still doesn't support the idea there is a need to "minimize the wage gap" by controlling what questions an employer can ask. If such a bias does exist it won't be eliminated because they aren't allowed to ask a single question.

Most research I've seen show that it's the women who are failing to take initiative in asking for raises, rather than the employer purposefully holding them back.

Yet the pretext of these laws is always under the assumption it's the employer actively doing something to block it instead of passively not offering it to people who don't ask (for whatever cultural or biological reason), likewise the women are not active but also passive in this situation.

Additionally you made the same jump in logic to assume women aren't getting the same jobs, the study was limited to promotions and this can't be easily assumed either.

This isn't about blaming the victim either but if you're going to micromanage it at least have to clear motivations and end goals that are being controlled for...

> If such a bias does exist it won't be eliminated because they aren't allowed to ask a single question.

Agreed.

> Most research I've seen show that it's the women who are failing to take initiative in asking for raises, rather than the employer purposefully holding them back. Yet the pretext of these laws is always under the assumption it's the employer actively doing something to block it instead of passively not offering it to people who don't ask (for whatever cultural or biological reason), likewise the women are not active but also passive in this situation.

I don't get that impression but that's a fair point.

> Additionally you made the same jump in logic to assume women aren't getting the same jobs, the study was limited to promotions and this can't be easily assumed either.

Is it unreasonable to assume that someone with a higher position and more responsibilities would have an easier time landing a higher position job at another company? Or perhaps I'm not understanding what you're saying?

> This isn't about blaming the victim either but if you're going to micromanage it at least have to clear motivations and end goals that are being controlled for...

Fair point.

The next step I'd like to see is for them to prohibit asking where you went to college. You still need to show credentials, but if you went to an accredited 4-year institution and got a BS in, say, chemistry, you would say you had an accredited BS in chemistry, and there would be a gov't database against which that claim could be checked. Someone who couldn't afford the tuition at a ritzy private school but still completed the same requirements for a BS in chemistry from an accredited state school would have the same access to jobs requiring an accredited BS in chemistry.

The next step after that would be for accreditation to be made more flexible, accommodating combinations of work-study, self-study, community college, private lab classes, and standardized testing to qualify a person for an accredited degree without having attended a traditional university at all.

Competition for admission to expensive, elite schools that apparently don't teach any better but simply pick the applicants who have already made themselves elite and charge them exorbitant fees to grant a brand-name credential which then boosts the value of the brand itself is distorting actual EDUCATION beyond all recognition.

The sooner employers have to judge applicant quality by means other than perceived eliteness of their school, the more diverse the paths to employment success can become, which ought to be a goal of both the left and the right politically.

> The next step after that would be for accreditation to be made more flexible, accommodating combinations of work-study, self-study, community college, private lab classes, and standardized testing to qualify a person for an accredited degree without having attended a traditional university at all.

You can already get an accredited 4-year (or graduate) degree without traditional University; e.g., through Western Governor's University, which is an accredited but non-traditional, competency-based, online school that’s been operating for almost 20 years.

https://www.wgu.edu/why_WGU/competency_based_approach

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