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Comment by beachy | Hacker News Reader

This article is desperately in need of some examples. I can't believe there isn't one.

One example: people who simply state “women make 82 cents for every dollar a man makes” to imply the advantage of being a man vs a woman.

The reality of how this number is calculated (eg averages across professions, even though men and women tend to work different professions, part time vs full time is not taken into account) suggests the conclusions that come from this 82 cents number is more nuanced than the initial statement.

And then you can take another step and ask why professions dominated by women in general are less well paid than similar ones dominated by men, and why it is mostly women who reduce their work hours while the kids are small and why not more men do the same.

Because the jobs are less valuable, not due to who's doing them but due to the market (i.e. all of us) seeing them as less valuable.

Teachers and nannies aren't paid a whole lot because they're easily replaceable, not because they're jobs dominated by women.

Doctors used to be exclusively men. Have salaries gone down now that women make up a significant percent of the number of doctors?

> Because the jobs are less valuable, not due to who's doing them but due to the market (i.e. all of us) seeing them as less valuable.

It is a rather sad and naive view of the value of work if you think that it is decided by market value. My work as a developer has a high market value because what I do is generating revenue for my employer. The work of the teacher who shapes the future of our children or the work of nurse that take care of our dying parents don't generate any revenue, and thus has a lower market value, but I, and I think we as a society should, value it much more.

Good teachers and good nannies aren't easier to replace than good carpenters or construction workers. But since many men who are in charge of setting salaries don't understand that they aren't as well paid.

> Have salaries gone down now that women make up a significant percent of the number of doctors?

Yes. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative salaries have gone down when traditionally male professions have been taken over more and more by women.

> Good teachers and good nannies aren't easier to replace than good carpenters or construction workers. But since many men who are in charge of setting salaries don't understand that they aren't as well paid.

I'm not sure teachers and nannies are good examples. Public school teachers are largely unionized which would eliminate differences in pay between men and women. And many nannies are effectively small business people who set their own rates.

>Public school teachers are largely unionized which would eliminate differences in pay between men and women.

No, it wouldn't. Why would it?

Maybe I misunderstand how unions work but my understanding is that unionized pay is based on experience levels and not gender.

Being unionized doesn't mean that pay is non-negotiable or anything of the sort. Yes, the union typically establishes a baseline pay based on experience, but individuals can still negotiate their own wages.

> The work of the teacher who shapes the future of our children or the work of nurse that take care of our dying parents don't generate any revenue, and thus has a lower market value, but I, and I think we as a society should, value it much more.

Teachers are glorified babysitters in the vast majority of instances due to many countries making truancy illegal. Yes, a great teacher is extremely valuable, but the vast majority of teachers are not great because there is not a high demand for great teachers. It’s even worse that we’re ruining the environment for both great teachers and great students by forcing students who have no interest in learning to be there.

(good) teachers generate great value and positive externalities into the future, but are simply unable to capture that value generation because of the time factor. many teachers accept pride and esteem in lieu of economic gain, but they should get paid accordingly as well if we had a fair politicoeconomic system.

economics in general has no answer for this differential temporal factor in value creation vs value capture. it's all predicated on immediate, atomic transactions, although the concept of externalities at least acknowledges the issue.

When parents can freely choose who schools their children, the ones that place a premium on how well they are schooled are free to invest relatively more than those who do not. This gap between value creation and value capture can be bridged by foresight.

ah yes, if only we had perfect foresight...

Congrats for that fine strawman of yours! Perfection is not required, your analysis is faulty.

>Yes. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative salaries have gone down when traditionally male professions have been taken over more and more by women.

No. I don't have the time to dig up the sources right now, and I don't remember seeing it specifically about doctors, but in many lines of work the relative salaries have gone up when traditionally male professions have been taken over more and more by women.

"That which can be asserted without evidence..."

Broken_Hippo dug up some, so here you go: [0]

and some of the research behind the article: [1]

The article contains quite a few interesting links to research if you are interested to learn more.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...

[1] https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/223534...

Someone posting a recent sociology paper behind a paywall in support of proposition p makes me update my beliefs closer to ¬p.

> Teachers and nannies aren't paid a whole lot because they're easily replaceable

I don't know any nannies, but it's not true that teachers are easily replaceable. Not good ones, anyway.

Good teachers need to show these skills:

* Classroom management (possibly in classes with disturbed kids)

* Curriculum knowledge (requires regular training)

* Social work skills

* Child psychology

* Understanding of various learning impediments

The fact that teachers are cheap is not evidence that they're easily replaced.

Unfortunately we don't hire only good teachers.

Even bad teachers have to meet the standards, which are usually set by law. A preschool teacher, who often gets paid just over minimum wage, usually requires a 2 year degree (for head start-like programs). A teacher? 4 year degree, with a preference for a masters and in many places, absolutely no pay during the summer months.

It isn't like any other industry hires only "good" people, though, so calling out teaching for that - especially if your area has a shortage - seems a bit unfair.

But those standards doesn't mean anything if they are still bad teachers. Would you hire a software engineer with a 4 year degree who can't code? No, of course not. But would you hire a teacher with a 4 year degree who can't teach? Of course you would! You just need them to tick a box, their skill as a teacher isn't relevant, if they have a piece of paper they meet the bar and are hired.

> Of course you would!

I suspect that perhaps you are not a teacher, and have never applied for teaching work. Or maybe you live somewhere where school hiring practices are very irresponsible.

My daughter is a teacher who has just changed jobs. The process was something like this:

* Apply (CV, plus extensive covering letter)

* Prospective new head knows old head (they all know one another) so they talk

* Candidate gets an interview, and has to prepare a class

* Interview day: candidate delivers prepared class, observed by head and head-of-year

* Candidate is interviewed at length by a panel of three teachers, including head

* Decision made subject to references

* References taken up; award position

What you've described is a process that isn't even appropriate for a supermarket checkout clerk.

In general, teachers start out with a bit of experience as most schools require teachers to, you know, teach as part of their schooling. In other words, you simply aren't hiring someone that doesn't know how to teach and has demonstrated it in the classroom.

Companies don't hire only good software engineers either, they hire plenty of ineffective ones. I don't see this changing their salaries.

Companies also fire a lot of bad software engineer and have technical interviews so there is pressure to perform. You never see teachers fired for being bad at teaching. They only get fired when they do something illegal like harass their students or when they refuse to go to work. If companies hired every person with a CS degree from any school to work as a software engineer and never fired anyone for bad performance you'd see software engineering salaries sink like a rock as well.

> They only get fired when they do something illegal

Here in the UK, people have employment rights, including the right not to be dismissed without process. That involves warning the employee twice verbally, putting in place measures to help them improve their performance, and then a final written warning. Teachers here are unionised; they can take their employer to an employment tribunal, which is a kind of court, for the offence of Unfair Dismissal. It takes time and money to fire someone for underperformance.

Consequently recruitment is done rather carefully - more carefully than in many software companies, judging by the calibre of some of the colleagues I've worked with.

FTR I used to be a school governor in a state-run primary school.

The jobs are viewed less valuable once women start working them. As in, a profession that was male-dominated starts paying less once it becomes the opposite [1}. It isn't really fair to use doctors as and example since it is still a male-dominated profession, with over 60% being male [2]. I'd also mention that obviously, teachers aren't that easily replaced, considering the shortage that has only gotten worse during covid [3]. A lot of states in the US will basically let anyone be a substitute: I know of at least one person that is teaching high school without a teaching license, but they might be technically a long-term substitute.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over... [2] https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/nation-s-physician-workfo... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59687947

Are doctors being paid less? Isn't this about supply and demand? If you flood the market with women that used to be housewives, the salaries will go down. But high demans fields stay highly paid, even increase.

Obviously, the job market doesn't respond to demand in that way. Otherwise, more places would be paying more right now with the current shortages. Teachers, for example, should be getting raises.

I was responding to the fact that doctors aren't female-dominated right now, a point you missed. Which they aren't. We haven't flooded it with a bunch of women: We have a limited capacity to train doctors. Nor are we getting folks in the market that used to be housewives: That time period has long since moved, though in many places, women still carry household responsibilities in addition to work. Rather than a flood, women are replacing men, mostly. Which is generally how it goes: Women replace men in some fields, and then pay goes down.

> It isn't really fair to use doctors as and example since it is still a male-dominated profession, with over 60% being male

from the second link: One of the steadiest movements has been the rise in women as a percentage of the physician workforce: It rose from 28.3% in 2007 to 36.3% last year, according to the AAMC’s Physician Specialty Data Reports from 2008 to 2020:

2007 — 28.3% 2010 — 30.4% 2013 — 32.6% 2015 — 34.0% 2017 — 35.2% 2019 — 36.3%

the above growth rates are not domination unless you're talking about women being dominant.

It isn't female dominated, though: Only 36.3% of the workforce are women. I don't know how that is female dominated if 63.7% - nearly 2/3 - of doctors are male. Just because the percentage of women in the professioin is growing doesn't mean it is dominated by females. Compare this to teachers: 76% of teachers are female [1]

Do you have some alternative version of "dominated" that I'm not privy to?

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/clr#:~:text=See%2....

Being paid less doesn’t necessarily mean your job is less “valuable”! I wish this was the case and everyone would get paid based value of their work but, sadly, this isn’t the reality of the world we live in.

> why it is mostly women who reduce their work hours while the kids are small and why not more men do the same.

Because evolution did this decision for us. Woman stays with children, while man risk their lives, because those, which did the opposite, lose evolutionary competition.

No, it didn’t. You may choose to follow old traditions that don’t make sense any more, but that is something you choose. There are very few jobs today where physical strength make a difference, and before the industrial revolution the fathers were mostly at home and played important parts in raising the children.

If you look at birth and death rates, you will see that more boys are born, but mortality for boys is higher[0]. Moreover, you will see same numbers as for salary difference. Natural selection did not stop that, so it's beneficial for society somehow.

[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/infant-death-rates-by-cau...

so is the point that difference of salary of men vs women is because of natural selection?

Your link says that infant mortality rate is slightly higher for boys. How is that supposed to help your argument?

> Moreover, you will see same numbers as for salary difference.

Is your argument that since there seem to be a correlation between mortality rate for boys and higher salary for men, that there is some kind of causation that make it good? You really have to expand on that if you want to make it comprehensible.

> Natural selection did not stop that, so it's beneficial for society somehow.

Here you reveal that you don't understand natural selection. Natural selection doesn't select for what is beneficial for society at all. Often what is good for the gene is bad for society, and the other way around.

Natural selection works on time scale much longer than the industrial revolution, and most factors are probably older than agriculture. It would be rather stupid to let what was useful behaviour 100k years ago control our lives today. We live in very different environments, in very different societies, and faces very different dangers.

I would say there are A LOT of jobs today where physical strength makes a difference. And a lot of them are high paid jobs too: oil rigs, ships, linemen, construction, mechanics etc. There are a lot of these examples. Sure, there are women in all of these fields, but because of the strength difference, the balance is tilting the other way. This can at least in part explain some of the pay gap: there are 7 million construction workers alone.

Compare a similar education man and woman: one does construction, the other is a cleaner.

Overtime is also not taken into account in those calculations. Men tend to work more overtime than women.

Men in general value money and status more highly and therefore sacrifice more in their pursuit. An observer who concentrates solely on the monetary outcome sees only half of the picture.

I thought the generalized examples here[1] were objectively adequate.

Using real world examples in this context strikes me as dancing into a mine field and a dismissal of the nuanced exercise towards understanding that the author suggests[2].

[1] https://consilienceproject.org/content/images/size/w1000/202...

[2] https://consilienceproject.org/content/images/size/w1000/202...

Imagine papers with conflicting results. One side cites one subset of papers. The other side cites the other subset. Both feel the other are are disingenuous.

Both sides are citing true facts (“these papers exist”), both sides are wrong (the data is in fact inconclusive)

That may be a strategic decision. The minute they provide examples, they start losing anyone in their audience who is pre-committed politically to that example.

"The Rainbow has 5 colors"

the "FBI crime statistics" meme is a common one.

Elaborate

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