Women don't earn about 18% less than men (OECD median, 2008)[0] because a small minority of employers pay women almost nothing, but because the vast majority of employers pay women (or blacks, or handicapped people) slightly less. Just like laws that prohibit killing don't target psychopaths, laws that prohibit discrimination don't target the KKK; they (should) aim to change the societal norms that your average Joe McAverage conforms to. It's the distinction between institutionalized discrimination and the more intimate personal type.

_____

[0] The exact number is not really what's important here, but http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/57/40846335.pdf

"One of my lecturers at university once presented us with this thought exercise: why are doctors so highly paid, and so well-respected? Our answers were predictable. Because they save lives, their skills are extremely important, and it takes years and years of education to become one. All sound, logical reasons. But these traits that doctors possess are universal. So why is it, she asked, that doctors in Russia are so lowly paid? Making less than £7,500 a year, it is one of the lowest paid professions in Russia, and poorly respected at that. Why is this?"

The answer? It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that in Russia, doctors have been a traditionally female profession, unlike western Europe and the USA. The low pay and low status of medicine in Russia appears to be directly tied to its identity as a "women's career" there.

(Quote from this page: http://cratesandribbons.com/2013/12/13/patriarchys-magic-tri... I don't know whether this site was the first place I heard about this fact, but it's the top hit for it on Google.)

Seems pretty obvious to me that in a free market, doctors would always be highly paid as they take years to train and everyone, rich or poor, needs them. But in a non-free market where they can't demand their true price, who would want to be a doctor? I'd expect that is a much bigger factor towards it being low status than the fact that it's female dominated.

Your "seems pretty obvious to me" is <em>only</em> valid if you assume a priori that there are no distortions to the pure, free market outcome due to irrationality on the part of market participants. Systematic gender bias would be a clear example of irrationality (which I assume you'd agree with even if you didn't believe it were actually at work here). You may not mean it this way, but your phrasing sounds to me like you're assuming your conclusion.

Regardless, I'm not going to go digging around for evidence. My point is that the post above and the linked article did not even address the socialism aspect, which is a huge warning flag.

http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/wf.epd.fact...

It's not a national study, no, and Utah has been cited as being one of the top 5 states in the gender pay gap so this is admittedly higher than many other states. It also states that this gap remains at about the same amount (66 to 72 cents per dollar) regardless of industry, education level, or personal choices (eg, raising children or being married).

A 2009 study sponsored by the US Department of Labor, which analysed about 50 studies on the gender pay gap, concluded that "The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."

There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.[1]

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

When it later talks about 'the gap' remaining after accounting for other variables. It means a smaller gap and it cites different studies. It just doesn't provide the 'after controlling for choices' value, only that one exists.

"Specifically, variables have been developed to represent career interruption among workers with specific gender, age, and number of children. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent."

My personal opinion is that there may be a slight gap, research that conservatively accounts for factors rather than assuming the difference is 100% gender-pay do tend to put it below 10%, however there just isn't enough hard evidence to account for all the variables which may cause such a gap, so finding an accurate value isn't possible. Each side of the debate will always find the most attractive figures to support their agenda, as can be seen by people quoting 20%+ raw wage gap analysis that doesn't account for difference in time worked etc, and others misreading statistics to say that it's lower than reported.

-------------------------- [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

[2] http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

edit - also, how do you claim to have any kind of confidence in the accuracy of your own estimate, while simultaneously arguing that reaching any sort of accurate value is impossible?

Sorry, complete failure to pay attention on my part.

Though as to your other point, unmeasured factors could push the figure either way, so if you allow the error bars to go as low as 2% purely on a hunch, then you should also consider that it could be up to 9.9%, if trying to work out any sort of reasonable policy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina-hoff-sommers/wage-ga...

The 77 cents on the dollar myth actively shifts attention away from the real issues with gender roles and western culture in favour of a simple outdated narrative that isn't going to help anyone.

It's a useful shibboleth though, the people using it are either well meaning but uninformed or interested more in attention/marketing than actual equality.

The case has made it through preliminary hearings and is now proceeding to a higher court; if they win a massive precedent will be set, allowing for claims of gender discrimination at the level of entire industries and vocations.

(I think it's totally a fair claim.)

If I decide to groom my dog myself, can I expect a lawsuit down the road for my non-consumption of professional dog grooming services if any dog groomer is a member of any minority class? After all, you can't be sure that I'm just a cheapskate who likes washing my dog; I might be racist/classist/sexist.

In case it's not clear, I view the decision to consume in a free market to be a free choice and not subject to judicial review.

You still get some cool stats, though: http://www.dn.no/skattelister/#!/Norge/2013/

These are the tax statistics for 2013. The table at the bottom is the "top score". Position and name on the left with income, tax and wealth to the right, in that order.

Hell no.

I don't want to be targeted be advertisers, penalised by insurers, and become a target for robbery because I have my personal information spread around for everyone to see.

There's a lot of personal shit on your tax return. Far more than is even apparent. It can also expose your side business to your employer which could cause issues.

I'm all for salary transparency, but tax returns are pretty private forms that contain an extremely high amount of PI, and can be data mined to expose even more implicit forms of PI.

Before you know it, you'll be getting bombarded with advertisements.

Besides, in the EU, a society where the average person hates it when someone who is not him is doing well, I'd rather people not know how much I earn.

Don't generalize. The EU has 28 member states, with diverse cultures and social norms. What works in Norway may not work in the southern Italy.

It argue tax forms are private, but that's what's at issue here. Many societies think this should be public information. It goes a long way towards preventing graft.

Not true.Read this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/d...

The fact is that most rich people live without showing off. They enjoy having the freedom to do in their lives what they want but they do not want other people kidnapping their children or blackmailing them. Or just people behaving different with them because of the money.

You know Bill Gates used to park his car like everybody else in MS, until it became impossible for him to park without having 1 or 2 people ask him for money(on the tens of thousand of dollars each time).

Or ask me. I am not Bill Gates, but for people in my environment I have "made it".

Just putting my name in my HN account will significantly change how people react to my comments.

Of course... Because if you live at place X you're rich and Y you're poor

That is naive at best.

"Published tax forms will have no effect on your probability of being robbed."

Of course not, so maybe you can start and put your tax info somewhere public.

http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/#req...

For another, since I run a small business, it would reveal my sales volume, which is probably the most important piece of information for someone trying to decide whether or not to compete with me.

As a woman, I'll repeat: paying women less for being women is not despicable.

That doesn't mean it's good. It's bad. But it's normal and there are a lot of social forces at work. Good, well-meaning people have all sorts of logical reasons to pay women or minorities or handicapped people less. You don't have to be evil to participate in a sucky system. We all do, even the virtuous ones. So, open your eyes and work to change things.

As long as we frame bias as something only despicable people have, we will not be able to change anything. After all, we're not despicable, so we can't be biased! Yay. False. Bias is something good people are still steeped in. It's how humans operate.

Transparency in pay is a way in which good people can be confronted by their bias. In any one situation, you can argue that a woman deserves less (rationally and justly -- just change the rules for evaluation so she loses [1]). If via transparency and use of data you notice that women are consistently paid less, and that your evaluation criteria keep changing, you can realize your implicit bias and change your actions.

[1] http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9120783 .

If that particular minority is strongly correlated to cultural values that clash strongly with the organizational culture. (And said values clash would likely result in slower career progression even if the minority status is deliberately ignored.)

There exist conceivable situations where minority (or other protected) status could actually directly affect job performance, or be correlated to something that affects job performance.

I think many, men and women, are still biased against women because they believe they are catty and dramatic or are afraid of increased legal issues (lawsuits). These are obviously not reality either and it too sucks.

Maternity leave means that women effectively cost more than men for the same amount of work, in the long run and on average. This can be mitigated by laws, but cannot be eliminated without addressing the underlying social issues. And no, mandatory paternity leave doesn't eliminate it, as there are more single mothers than single fathers.

The logic is simple. Companies survive by making a profit. In order to do so, they attempt to cut costs for a given amount of work done. Currently, females on average end up spending more time on paid leave. Hence, there ends up being a bias.

And I'm not sure if it is one that can be fixed through legislation. Attempts in that vein tend to be counterproductive at best. It's more of a social issue.

And temps generally are worse productivity-wise than an experienced worker.

Or of a secretary / office assistant / whatever they're called these days (the person who's job is to make life easier for other people, so that said other people can get more of their own work done)?

If it was possible to objectively measure productivity, there wouldn't be any of these huge arguments about pay fairness.

You assume that, innate talents being equal, women are equal to men in terms of productivity. I mean, this is the stated intention of the Feminist movement in a nutshell, yes?

And then you take a look at the other stats (as I mentioned, females take more leave. And females are more likely to have a child and stop working [1]. And there are the liability issues, ironically caused by the Feminist movement.)

And so - equal productivity, but less hours for the amount of money you pay. It's a simple calculation, with the result that, if the above assumptions are true, women should, from an economic point of view, be paid less than men on average.

At which point, if you are still arguing that wage should be equal from economic terms, you've gone beyond saying women are equal to men and saying that women are better then men - and that is an entirely different ball of wax.

[1] http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/[email protected]?iid=13#M_7

Can someone please respond to these points with actual numbers to back their points?

All 8 people on my team have been around longer than that. I've been there 8 years, and the other senior person has been around slightly longer. Our boss has been with the company for I think 17+ years. (And our old boss, who took the other half when the team got split in a reorg, has been with the company for 30+ years.)

.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm says: """The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.6 years in January 2014, unchanged from January 2012"""

"""In January 2014, median employee tenure (the point at which half of all workers had more tenure and half had less tenure) for men was 4.7 years, unchanged from January 2012. For women, median tenure in January 2014 was 4.5 years, about unchanged from January 2012. Among men, 30 percent of wage and salary workers had 10 years or more of tenure with their current employer, compared with 28 percent for women. (See tables 1 and 3.)"""

I have been linking the numbers behind my arguments. If you wish to show the numbers behind yours, I would be more than happy to discuss them.

Parents are your most productive employees. They are the only ones who are making more employees.

Yes, but it's better for the state to pay it so that because if companies pay maternity leaves completely, the cost is not distributed evenly.

>The continued existence of the species through childbirth is something that organizations should really factor into their budgets.

I disagree, that should be the responsibility of the state and individual families.

>Is not exactly a difficult cost to foresee as people have been doing it for quite a while now.

It's a cost that is easy to foresee if your company is large. If the company consists of 1-2 employees, the company can go bankrupt from the costs. I've talked to an entrepreneur whose company actually did go bankrupt from maternity leave costs.

edit - I am not against the state picking up the tab, by the way. I just think it is one of those costs that could be paid either way and I have limited sympathy for employers who complain that they couldn't possibly be expected to plan for the eventuality that some of their employees might become parents.

But for some reason you want to conveniently ignore all these facts and instead point to maternity leave and say that's why we should pay women less? Think again.

But further, if your weren't trolling, the answer to your question is that even if the assumption were true, to pay them less would be sociopathic. That's why it's wrong. Again, think.

If disabled people are actually, objectively, less productive workers, a drain on society, why is it wrong for societies to euthanize them?

However, the question becomes if men retire earlier.

And the answer is no. [1] Women retire earlier than men on average (at least in Canada. Don't have stats handy for anywhere else, unfortunately). And that's measured in years, more than compensating for the above.

Regarding disabled people, a simple answer is that society as a whole would be against it, as there is enough of a chance of any individual person becoming disabled that it is in their best interest to not allow such a law.

And making an argument from an economic as opposed to a moralistic point of view does not make one a sociopath. As you may not have noticed, I never mentioned my moral point of view on the matter, as it's irrelevant.

[1] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-222-x/2008001/sectionm/m-age...

[2] http://www.prdh.umontreal.ca/BDLC/data/can/mltper_1x5.txt

[3] http://www.prdh.umontreal.ca/BDLC/data/can/fltper_1x5.txt

[4] http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2012002/article/11697-...

Yes, making an argument involving decisions that affect the life chances of human beings and hiding behind "economic theory" is sociopathic.

That assumes that only insurance-based risk affects economics.

Mandating that companies pay employees not to work puts them in an awkward position where they're incentivized to discriminate. If government wants to encourage people to have kids, then government should pay parents directly.

Not to mention that in the case of single births, you'll end up with the women taking maternity leave while the men don't. And with marriage stats the way they are...

Which means that it's still advantageous for the company to hire men over women. Amortizing costs doesn't magically make the cost go away, it just hides it.

And it doesn't even cover the case when the mother and father split before birth.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2012002/article/11697-...

Well, one think the government could do is to cover pay during sick leave, parental leave and child care leave (i.e. when children are sick). This would also benefit startups/new businesses, where employees being sick/pregnant is not just statistics, but can make or break a business.

As having an experienced worker go MIA for months is bad for a company in terms of productivity, and substantially more women take maternity leave than men take paternity leave.

A temp worker is seldom as good at their job as an experienced worker.

Personally, I don't think government should cover things like sick leave, but that is another matter entirely. (In general, the larger the system, the less incentive for any one person in the system to keep the system as a whole running smoothly.)

The plural of anecdote is not data, and you are no exception.

StatCan: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2012002/article/11697-...

(Serious question.)

*Yes, anecdotal evidence but I hear it from her and her female engineering friends a lot. To the point I've offered to help any of them negotiate their contracts in the future.

I really like my work and I work a lot. I have worked in early-mid stage startup and now am working with a pre-series A stage startup. I have never shied away from asking for more responsibilities or climbing up the management chain. I am generally known as the more assertive person in the organization. But when it comes to compensation, I cannot bring it up. Not sure if it has to do with being a female.

It would be ideal if there was a 'go to' person who can push me more in negotiating for better compensation.

Well, the two variables your subjects have in common is being engineers as well as being female. Personally (being a male engineer), I'd say being a bad negotiator has just as much to do with being an engineer as being a woman (except if women engineers are even worse negotiators than I am).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/09/04/gossipy-w...

There's a very rational economic reason why some people are paid less than others for the same job. Leverage. Since WWII, women entered the work force in large numbers _because they were willing to work for less than their male counterparts._ So what was an opportunity for women once has become discrimination. Rightfully so. But it's important to remember how we actually got here. Equality of opportunity often translates into inequalities of outcome for reasons that are neither good nor efficient. So, yeah, sometimes the law can tip the scales to fix this. And that is not a bad thing.

It might if your employees start suing you and costing you money.

Women and men should also tell every woman they know to negotiate their pay. The first offer is not something anyone has to take, and while this may be self evident here, it isnt everywhere.

Your friend might be aware that she has fewer opportunities and therefore be less willing to take this risk.

This is terrible and unjustifiable, but that is how it is.

If the law says you cannot lie about your reasons and that you must have them, then there is a means to enforce it. I mean, I could say I didn't rob a bank and get away with it due to lax laws and inadequate technology, but that doesn't mean it is impossible to protect banks from robbery. It means you reform the processes.

For instance, if employers went through independently regulated agencies to conduct hiring/firing/pay, then they wouldn't be able to make decisions like that and get away with it.