How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap

Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by Chinjut on Friday April 29, 2016 @01:51PM (#11597407)

Oh, ok. So, logically, it must just be that women-associated occupations tend to be lower payed than men, women tend to be slotted into lower positions than men, women aren't encouraged into or supported in higher education the same way as men, women do not receive job tenure as easily as men, and/or gendered pressures cause women to work less hours per week (on careers rather than, e.g., a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities) than men, resulting in women being paid on average 23% less than men. I guess that's alright, then.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by Chinjut on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:21PM (#11597655)

5 downvotes? Alright, I guess I'm wrong. "The 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week", but also, it's not accounted for by any of those things, and doesn't exist.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by technocodes on Friday April 29, 2016 @01:54PM (#11597423)

No it's like saying most investment bankers are male and make 500k a year, most nurses are female and make 70k a year, Injustice! Look at that pay gap! Outrageous!

- It makes zero sense.

EDIT: What I meant to say is men go into different careers than woman and for different reasons. Usually men go after higher paying jobs (investment banking). When people compute the pay gap they dont take this into account, so they compare pay across industries (investment banking to nursing) which is meaningless, and likely is propaganda.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by angelbob on Friday April 29, 2016 @01:58PM (#11597473)

It is outrageous if a similarly-qualified woman would have a lot more trouble getting the $500k investment banker job. In that case, society is getting lower-quality investment bankers despite spending $500k/year on them.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by technocodes on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:32PM (#11597762)

Which is illogical. I will tell you my company would love to hire someone at a 30% discount.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by lowmess on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:01PM (#11597497)

Except when you consider that wages rise and fall in fields depending on the gender makeup of those positions [0].

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

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by whatok on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:08PM (#11597552)

Consider this. I have a group of 100 people, 50 male and 50 female. Job x is available in industry y. Job x is highly sought after and all 50 men apply for it. Industry y is traditionally male dominated and for whatever reason, none of the 50 women have previously applied for the job. Through the magical powers of the internet, women are now suddenly interested in the field and not only do the 50 men apply for the job but the 50 women do also; doubling the applicant pool.

How will the employer react to the sudden surge in applications?

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by lowmess on Friday April 29, 2016 @03:11PM (#11598044)

But that's not what the article is talking about, it's talking about male-dominated fields that were once female-dominated and vice versa.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by whatok on Friday April 29, 2016 @03:23PM (#11598117)

One of the previously male-dominated field that the article mentions is computer programming. There is no other field in the article that has undergone such a fundamental shift from when women used to dominate the field. There were virtually no barriers to entry to the field back then either in the form of requiring a degree or societal norms ingrained from childhood.

Other fields mentioned either require longer hours or were simply more demanding. We can get into what are reasonable hours or demands in a separate conversation but all things equal, employers are going to pay more for someone who works longer and puts up with more demands.

For everything else, when you introduce half the working population to a field that they were once closed off to, wages are going to drop. I am not pretending that it's the only factor but a huge over supply of labor will cause wages to drop; all things equal.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by eli on Friday April 29, 2016 @01:58PM (#11597471)

Is there something about the male gender that makes one a better investment banker? If not, how do you explain why that is in the first place?

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by morgante on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:03PM (#11597509)

There's abundant evidence that women prefer to work fewer hours than men and working insane hours is (for better or worse) a requirement of investment banking.

Whether the preference for fewer hours is innate or learned I don't know.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by technocodes on Friday April 29, 2016 @02:34PM (#11597771)

Women flat out don't want to do it. Some do, but not many.

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Re:How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the ... by eli on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @08:44AM (#11627898)

I flat out don't believe that.

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