Nobody can manage anything with this little information. A KPI set at a particular value cannot tell why the KPI has that value. Thus without more information, your hypothetical is not productive.

An illustration by way of example. In a field where other firms have a range of net profit margins of 35% - 45%, one firm sets their net profit target at 10%. Is that because they are not competitive?

Another illustration by way of example. In a field where other firms have a range of revenue per employee of $200k - $300k, one firm has no RPE target at all and its revenue per employee is $15k. Is that worth examining?

> Nobody can manage anything with this little information.

I can! Unless you have some reason to believe that one gender is superior at the job than the other, it should match the representation of the field.

> In a field where other firms have a range of net profit margins of 35% - 45%, one firm sets their net profit target at 10%. Is that because they are not competitive?

Net profit margin is not a protected class. Race and gender are.

> it should match the representation of the field

Why? You have not supported this at all. If the field is staffed by wildly bigoted hiring managers, why does your assertion follow?

Separately, why would this be obviously best for the company? Does matching parity with the field somehow ensure the best quality or cost/performance? Does this still hold at firms that are smaller than the largest (say: under 5k engineers)? Why?

If I'm hiring 20 people in a field that's 80% women and 20% men, why would I expect to hire more than 20% men? Unless I have some evidence to think that one gender is better on average than the other, then we'd expect a non-discriminatory hiring process to hire women and men in equal proportions relative to the field.

If a firm is staffed by bigoted hiring managers that favor men, we'd actually expect closer to equal representation amongst those bigoted firms. Because they're bigoted against women and less likely to hire them, they end up with a more "equitable" workforce. If a firm in our hypothetical field is bigoted against women, and hires women at half the rate as men, then it'd actually end up with a representation of ~40% women and 60% men. It's closer to equitable because of its discriminatory policies.

This is a great example of why equity isn't evidence of nondiscrimination, and gender disparity isn't evidence of discrimination.

> Separately, why would this be obviously best for the company?

Illegally discriminating against pregnant women benefits the company: maternity leave is expensive, and avoiding expecting women saves money. Does that make it a good thing? Remember, nondiscrimination is both morally right and the law of the land (in most liberal democracies, at least), even if you have reason to believe that increasing or decreasing the representation of certain groups is advantageous.

> Does matching parity with the field somehow ensure the best quality or cost/performance?

Hiring the best candidates ensures the best quality and cost to performance ratio. Unless you have some reason to believe that men are better than women, then matching parity of the field is a side-effect of hiring the best candidates.

> Does this still hold at firms that are smaller than the largest (say: under 5k engineers)? Why?

Sure, a small sample size is going to have more variance. A one-woman consulting firm is going to have 100% women employees. That's not evidence of discrimination. But nor is a one-man consulting firm that's 100% male. Smaller firms have a lower sample size and are naturally going to have larger variance due to smaller sample sizes. But it'll all average out.

it will probably be downvoted to hell, but it seems like there isnt many that argue the field of plumbing needs more women, more women laying down sewage pipes etc.

I tried reaching out to some feminist organisations to make some campaigns for this, and they were 100% not interested.

it seems the "increase female %" only covers jobs that are super cleanly in office spaces

I understand your sentiment. In theory there is no difference between a plumber or construction worker vs a CEO when it comes to DEI.

However, in the real world, a female CEO or President is much more likely to inspire girls to work towards those roles, compared to a model female plumber.

They call it "glass ceiling" not "glass floor" for a reason.

Those feminist organizations are definitely hypocritical, no question about that. That does not necessarily mean they are doing anything "wrong", according to how the world runs. I wouldn't blame them for not doing anything.

All that said, I think you bring up a valid point that people almost never talk about. But that's as much as it's worth.

if broadening female involvement in the upper levels is good, it makes no sense that it isnt also in the "lower levels" (though I would say its not proper to describe plumbing as a lowlevel job).

The goal is NOT to "inspire girls", the goal is to make the job sector reflect the population, no?

for feminists it seems like only the nice cushy office jobs needs to reflect the population, not the dirty labour

the goal is to remove barriers. reflecting the population implies that every job should have 50/50 gender parity. i don't think that should be a goal unless there is a benefit, such as in school where children need both male and female role models.

the problem is to identify what the barriers are and how to actually get rid of them. lack of inspiration can be a barrier.

There are many studies that have identified barriers that causes gender segregation. The most interesting aspect that I find in those studies is that the barriers are similar for both male and female dominated industries.

The biggest barrier of them all for both men and women is that young adults will look to similar aged and gendered peers when choosing career paths. Such choices generally provide a feeling of safety which provide protection against setbacks and doubt (something most student and later professionals generally face multiple times at some point in their life). This concept is a major aspect of gender equality paradox, which predict higher rate of gender segregation with fewer barriers.

The most effective way to get rid of those barriers is to create alternative forms of protection that give similar effects. Mentorship programs has shown to be very effective substitute for both women and men, but they are costly and do not fix the initial problem when young adults chooses career paths.

Sweden has public data on gender segregation, and they provide an additional risk factor of gender segregation. Career paths that has natural points for segregation has generally higher rate of gender segregation. Examples of those are teachers who can first segregate on age/educational level, and then further segregate on subject. An other is nurse, doctors and other health care specialists, who can later segregate further based on specialty. Give people multiple chances to self-segregate based on identity and they will do so.

that is very insightful and interesting. the more opportunities there are to choose a direction along your career, the more often you have to consider if you are comfortable being part of a minority in your field.

but i think we can do more with mentorship and go beyond its perceived limits. however getting there takes us to rethink education as a whole.

there are a few aspects: for one i think everyone should have a mentor at least for the first few years of their career. that should be part of our education system. for example, every university graduate should be required to mentor at least one new student. every university student as well as trade apprentice should mentor in highschool. etc... in the montessori education method older students always teach younger ones, so mentoring at a higher level is really just an extension of that.

this would obviously be easier to ask in countries where higher education is free, because then its fair to ask for something back.

from these, mentoring in highschool is probably the most important because that's when careers are chosen. i remember that time, and i remember being all alone with my choices. i really would have loved to be able to get more insights into the potential careers that i was interested in.

well don't ask feminist organizations, ask the plumbers and the customers:

https://www.workiz.com/blog/plumbing/why-how-hire-women-plum...

The second reason comes down to client safety. For various reasons, some women simply aren’t comfortable with male plumbers. Though most plumbers are perfectly nice people unless you’re a particularly spirited clog in a drain, the fact remains that not every woman is comfortable being alone in her home with a man that she doesn’t know. Having access to industry professionals that can provide a little more comfort can be a huge selling point, particularly for young women, single mothers, and victims of domestic violence.

https://www.worldplumbing.org/attracting-more-women-to-plumb...

https://www.commusoft.us/blog/why-the-industry-needs-more-fe...

“We work with women that are survivors of domestic abuse. At a women’s safe house, if some work needs doing and they need to contact a tradesman, it can often be quite stressful for them. We get inundated calls from customers who want to use tradeswomen.”

so it appears there is an objective need for female plumbers, not just as a statistic, not just to create a better workplace, or higher shareholder returns. those arguments are given too. but with single women being more common and higher awareness of domestic abuse, the argument can be made that with 30% of women being single, 5% female plumbers is not enough.

this is a very rough estimate. 30% single women is 15% of the total population, but 23% of the total number of households. (30% single women + 30% single men + 70% each of married men and women adds up to 130 household units)

however if you add 25% stay at home women who are usually the ones who would deal with a plumber since the husband is at work, then they will probably prefer female plumbers too. so i'd estimate that we need at least 25% to 30% female plumbers.

it can be argued that being served by a tradesperson of your own gender is a right, and therefore a gender distribution that matches the needs of the population is not just something that would improve the trade (which can be argued about), but actually a necessity that should be enforced by law.

same goes for teachers btw. boys need male role models, and therefore i believe laws should push for a 50/50 gender parity among teaching staff at all levels.

similar arguments can be made for all consumer facing professions. (police for example). this is no longer a question of qualification or job preference. it's not even a question of gender equality, but a question of how to best serve the population as a whole.