Google Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men as It Addresses Wage Equity (2019)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This is an unfortunate way of characterizing Damore’s argument. It’s technically true in that Damore IIRC was arguing that there was more variation among men than women (more men at the top and at the bottom but fewer in the middle, but Google hires from the top hence more men). So yeah, technically biological differences, but when the average person hears that they’re going to assume he was arguing that women in general are dumber than men in general or some such. That said, this also represents much more earnest coverage of Damore considering the initial coverage overtly lied on many accounts (calling it an anti diversity screed, claiming he sent it as a memo to the company, etc).
This problem would be mitigated if salaries were open. Glassdoor and levels.fyi somewhat help with this problem.
It's not unfair in general. If you're not actively seeking money and raises, who said you should get them? This frustrates me as a kind of kindergarten mentality, "I was 'good' therefore I deserve good things back". No, you don't; learn to protect your interests.
What I think is unfair is that a lot of companies would never admit this adversarial attitude towards employees. Most of them will bullshit you with "we are a family" and whatnot.
I worked in a company (20-30 people, Russia) where salaries were secret and not the same for everyone, but the company openly admitted it and actually encouraged employees to ask for more money (and the manager could ask for more results in return). "Everything's negotiable" was a phrase I heard a lot from them. It was my first job, love that place.
It works in favor of companies, who monetize it.
The company just need to not treat a person bad enough that he overcomes his own inertia and leaves.
Hung out another year, then left due to low wages.
That boys are underperforming in education will need to be addressed too.
I just don't expect feminists to fight for such causes, but would be pleasantly surprised if they did.
What was noticeable was
- A tendency to compare themselves to others and stronger "imposter syndrome".
- Tended to be less aggressive in tech discussions.
- Also more frequently moved/quit to be with boyfriend or husband when he made career moves.
As a female electrical engineer, I make more than most all of my peers do. The key thing here, and my case is usually what applies to men and not women, is that I work significantly more hours. My average week is 50-65 hours, as where they all work 40-45 hours a week. I'm single, have no kids, and enjoy my job, so it's easy for me to clock in many extra hours. We're all paid the exact same hourly rate, there's no difference. We get the same yearly raises and the same pay rate so that there's no friction between workers about who gets paid more, however I make more because of the amount of overtime I put in.
The hype of the pay gap is largely due to the statistical fact that most women work less hours than men do. It's nothing to do with being paid less, it's that they (actively) earn less, by choice.
Google's tech jobs are 76% men (from their 2020 diversity report).
Saying "50% of those being underpaid for their work are men" is an interesting statistic then only because 50 is less than the expected 76.
This stat, taken on its own merit, illustrates that women are three times more likely to be underpaid.
For the sake of completion:
Suppose there are N employees.
76% = 0.76N are men; 24% = 0.24N are women.
Suppose also that n men being underpaid for their work.
The stat as quoted suggests there are n women being underpaid. (Or, sufficiently close to n, that a stronger stat can't be quoted)
Chance of men being underpaid: n/0.76N
Chance of women being underpaid: n/0.24N
Chance of women being underpaid is therefore (n/0.24N)/(n/0.76N) = 19/6 > 3.1 times higher.
I rounded conservatively to conclude "women are three times more likely to be underpaid".
More likely, we should interpret that to mean that men were found to be more likely to be underpaid (n_men > N_men), and that the appropriate comparison of variance (finding outliers) among men versus women was performed.
I'm satisfied with that choice.
Given that Google are here quoting this stat in the press (with the 50/50 implication) to defend themselves against an inequality suit, without actually giving us the figures, I assume that this is the best spin that Google can put on it.
It's entirely possible that only 1 man and 3 (3.1) women are underpaid. That would make Google about the fairest employer in the history of the world despite being 3.1 times more likely to under pay women.
On the other hand every woman could be underpaid AND a third of all the men. That would be terrible (and profitable).
Which is it? 3.1 doesn't tell you. So it's not useful. At best it's noise, at worst it's deceptive.
I'll leave you with your 3.1 and I don't object to the mathematics above so much as the logic underlying them. I don't think it's fair for someone to be down voted without explanation so at least you know the "other side" :)
"Men account for about 69 percent of the company’s work force, but they received a higher percentage of the money."