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Comment by Dewie | Hacker News Reader

> The last western country to give women right to vote was in 1960s.

Women got the right to vote at a federal level in Switzerland in 1971.

> The fact that you make 80 cents to every dollar a man makes is not a proof of any prejudice but a proof that women are genetically pre-disposed to making less money than men.

No. You talk about sociology 101, so how about this nugget; making less money than someone has many more variables associated with it than discrimination (for example; part time vs. full time). This is practically an urban myth at this point. You can Google for refutations of it if you want (either 80 cents, or 77 cents) and you should be able to find a dozen decent ones.

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> This is practically an urban myth at this point.

You are wrong. It's not clear-cut. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap for an introduction.

Are you suggesting that women are not prejudiced again in work-place and in technology?

> You can Google for refutations of it if you want (either 80 cents, or 77 cents) and you should be able to find a dozen decent ones.

I did. Here's what I found:

http://asq.sagepub.com/content/44/3/453.short https://archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/14253

Actually if you look at the US office of government accountability study, you'd see a completely different view. Considering that the two cited articles are from 1993 and 1999 respectively, it might be worth it to attach more weight to a wide ranging government study from 2009.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09279.pdf

Two things about this study: First, it only covers people in government jobs. Second, the title of the study is "Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Workforce Narrows..." meaning there IS STILL a gender pay gap. And if you read the study, about 7 cents worth of the gap was unexplained by any of the factors they analyzed.

So okay, women don't make $0.77 for every dollar men earn. If we discard all the stuff the GAO found that definitely isn't related, women make $0.93 for every dollar men earn. So, is that somehow okay because it's "only" 7 cents?

Nope, I'm just drawing your attention to the fact that it's narrowed from (the previously) stated 77 cents, and that perhaps the issue needs to be examined from a new perspective in order to continue to achieve returns.

As the previous studies cited were a 1993 study and a 1999 study covering Sweden, I thought it might be important to add some modern statistics into the mix.

The interesting part to me is on pages 84-86. If you look, you'll see the pay gap resulting from characteristics such as experience, difference in education, and difference in occupation (the three most usually cited to explain the wage gap) have narrowed significantly.

This is important because it showcases a societal shift in workforce population, from a 'glass ceiling' problem to a far more difficult one that is harder to define and fix.

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