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Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dmichulke on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:24AM (#16061156)
I always wonder - if there is such a huge gap, why don't folks just employ women, since they're cheaper and do the same work?

Isn't that the question to be answered in order to really understand what's going on?

Otherwise I bet I can always find, for any company, a subset of people that are underpaid relative to the rest, be it related to age, gender, race, sexual preferences, employment history, ZIP code, whatever.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by T2_t2 on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:52AM (#16061396)
No, there isn't. The gap is between different professions, not intra-professional. Where it is intra-professional, men tend to work more hours, and women tend to preference conditions over monetary remuneration (i.e. flexibility over pay, extraneous benefits over direct compensation etc etc). Just to be clear, extra time off is remuneration, as are things like on-site day care centres, but they aren't ever counted in pay gap studies (that I have seen anyway).

Add to that that Lesbians make more than straight women[1] - and gay men less than straight men [2][3] - and there is a bit more at play.

The problem is that any time there is something men do better than women - like negotiate pay - rather than bring women up to the male standard (teach women to negotiate better), people want to hamstring men (no pay negotiation). Anti-worker policies and pro-gender policies are often indistinguishable, if only to me personally, and in my more cynical moments think this is a business conspiracy to deflate wages to female levels, not increase wages to male levels.

[1] http://bigthink.com/dollars-and-sex/what-explains-the-lesbia...

[2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-232X.2009....

[3] https://joeclark.org/gaymoney/findings/

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by yomly on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:21AM (#16061663)
It's possible to pay everyone equally - especially when you just pay everyone less.

If you disclose what everyone earns at every level, it's easy to then let all your employees pull everyone hold themselves accountable to the same level.

A bit like crabs in a bucket...

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by falcolas on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:32AM (#16061224)
There isn't a huge gap, not for the same job/title combination (there are cases where the gap does exist for the same job, but it's typically less than 10%). The gap widely most widely reported, the 70% figure, is primarily caused because of the genders holding different jobs, where the average pay for female-dominated jobs is less than the average pay for male-dominated jobs.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by wrsh07 on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:00AM (#16062050)
So... this is light on details into their analysis, but Laszlo Block [formerly of Google - where I work fwiw], claimed "In 2015 we added 8,214 employees to Google. And the women we hired, on average, received a 30 percent bigger salary increase upon joining the company, compared to men."

If you accepted his claim that Google does pay genders equitably, then this would indicate a large pay disparity outside of Google.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/04...

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:04AM (#16062081)
> If you accepted his claim that Google does pay genders equitably, then this would indicate a large pay disparity outside of Google.

Or it would indicate a successful outreach program at Google for women by which they were successful at getting qualified women not currently working in tech to apply; this doesn't necessarily imply a like-duties gender pay gap.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by collyw on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:08PM (#16062726)
Could it indicate discrimination against men at Google?
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by falcolas on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:51AM (#16062597)
There's a lot of variables which are not being taken into account there. If you hired a person from outside SV, and another from within SV, you immediately have a 40-50% difference in salary increases. Or, if you hire one person out of an advertising company and another out of a software company, the difference will be quite large.

It's also a bit of a weasely statement - to quote Penn & Teller, they are lying with numbers - since it doesn't mention the current difference in wages.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by Brotkrumen on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:34AM (#16062396)
10% adjusted is pretty large. Even sub-10% usually works out to a couple of thousand each year.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by falcolas on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:46AM (#16062537)
Yes, it's large, but it's also only practically visible when you can see all of the wages for all companies. Pay gaps between individuals in the same company - regardless of gender - can be much larger than 10%, since your wage (in the US) depends more on your wage at your last job than your actual skill level.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by karlkeefer on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:38AM (#16061278)
Perhaps it is due to "family costs" being carried disproportionately by women.

Leaving early to pick up kids, staying home when kids are sick, etc. Even though typical gender roles are becoming less typical, they may still result in differential output from the perspective of an employer.

Thomas Sowell (a while ago) showed a dramatic difference in salary between all women, and women who had never married, suggesting that a huge component of the pay gap was due to household and family expectations.

I imagine there is more recent research on this exact theory, but I'm not aware of it.

[dead]
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by yorwba on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:53AM (#16061969)
But if a man earns enough to pay for the needs of his wife in addition to his own, that means he is paid much more than her. I wouldn't deduce that from the man's total compensation, since it essentially is an expense like any other.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by mafribe on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:46PM (#16063775)
Childcare / alimony is not an expense like any other because in many legislations you cannot really decided to stop paying that expense, see e.g. [1]. In the US you typically go to prison pretty swiftly if you refuse to pay.

[1] http://www.realworlddivorce.com/

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by paperpunk on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:42AM (#16061308)
Perhaps the same biases that might influence career progression/pay-rise discussions could also influence hiring decisions?

Though I agree with your secondary assertion.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by Brotkrumen on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:36AM (#16061264)
The belief that a woman with the same experience, skill, etc. is a worse performer would lead to a lower salary for women. That's the whole point of contention.

And we should probably let go of the idea that markets are rational.

[dead]
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:04AM (#16061495)
> one wonders why none of them leads by example and hires woman only.

Because that's blatantly, bright-line illegal?

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by mafribe on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:14AM (#16061580)
Sounds like a rationalisation.

Plenty of places have no problem hiring (almost) only women, e.g. kindergarden, waitresses, art galleries, medical sociologists, stewardesses.

In any case I doubt this would be illegal in every legislation. In the US men are not a "protected group".

Where there is a will there is a (legal) way! I imagine that a company could legally load up with women to the max, compensate with differential hiring: e.g. only hiring female programmers, compensate with lower paid male drivers/cleaners. Or use outsourcing.

I'm sure if Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Pichai etc really belived that women are underpaid vis-a-vis their contribution, they could easily make it happen. Indeed, they are now so powerful they could get their army of lobbyists to change the law.

Action speaks louder than words.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:25AM (#16061711)
> Plenty of places have no problem hiring (almost) only women, e.g. kindergarden, waitresses, art galleries, medical sociologists, stewardesses.

Yes, there's plenty of kinds of jobs men don't apply for at nearly the rate women do. That's certainly not the case for programming jobs.

> In any case I doubnt this would be illegal in every legislation. In the US men are not a "protected group"

This is simply factually incorrect; in employment, sex—not just one sex—is a protected class, federally [0] and separately under most state laws, as well. About the only assymetric protected class in employment is age, where discrimination is only protected against when it is against those over 40.

[0] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by mafribe on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:48AM (#16061927)
> there's plenty of kinds of jobs men don't apply for at nearly the rate women do.

There's plenty of kinds of jobs Women don't apply for at nearly the rate men do.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:00AM (#16062055)
> There's plenty of kinds of jobs Women don't apply for at nearly the rate men do.

Yes, but that's not germane to the discussion.

[dead]
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:52PM (#16063851)
> The structural core of feminist argument patterns is

...also not germane to the present discussion, though it perhaps is relevant to some post far uphtread or off to the side somewhere.

A company adopting a policy of hiring only women for technical positions is a bright line violation of federal (and, in California, also state) employment law. The fact a number of industries that aren't tech are nearly exclusively female (largely because of applicant patterns) does not change this. The fact that some industries are male dominated, in part for similar reasons, really has nothing at all do with this one way or the other. The nature of feminist argument patterns is even more completely irrelevant.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by protomyth on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:48AM (#16061915)
Daycares in the USA get away with it, and, sadly, a lot of parents are very happy about it. Look at the gender % for daycares and elementary school. This is actually a rather larger problem since we are not properly providing young boys with role models.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:00AM (#16062048)
> Daycares in the USA get away with it,

With a policy of hiring only women, or with being a field of mostly female solo operators without employees, with nearly 100% of applicants for places that do hire employees being female?

Because the two things aren't equivalent in the law.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by protomyth on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:11AM (#16062161)
By hiring only women as a policy. People overlook it, and a lot of parents don't want their children changed by a man. Plus, insurance companies mysteriously raise rates when men are on staff. My college friend started a daycare for his church and encountered all this fun, and I had to deal with some of these issues when we were running daycares (excuse me, Early Childhood Education centers) in the 90's.

I would imagine after rejection after rejection men would find something else (insurance was my friends out). It still amazes me how many industries insurance companies seem to influence the hiring in.

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by ensignavenger on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:03PM (#16062691)
Do the insurance companies ask about the gender of a daycares staff?
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by protomyth on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:20PM (#16063489)
The one my friend dealt with got a list so they could do their own background check, plus it was pretty obvious to the rep it was a guy asking for the quote this time as opposed to the first quote.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by yorwba on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @10:57AM (#16062026)
You may consider it "improper", but actually young boys are provided with plenty of role models, they just happen to be female.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by protomyth on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:14AM (#16062188)
If you reverse the sexes in your response then there would be outrage. Boys need to see men interacting with men and women to pick up on the social cues.
Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by Brotkrumen on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @11:31AM (#16062356)
How can the paygap truly not exist when there are so many wealthy, right-wing, male sexist types in HN, Silicon Valley and any industry really?

Maybe you shouldn't rely on a thought-experiment when you can do data: Adjusted paygaps consistenly range between 4-7%.

Say, the SJW publication Fortune:

http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/myth-gender-wage-gap/

Or the left-wing washington post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/women-...

Re:Iceland becomes first country to legalise equal pay by collyw on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:10PM (#16062750)
Pretty sure there are lots of left wing hardcore feminist types in Silicon Valley as well.