This article assumes that there's nothing affecting or constraining people's career choices besides interest in a particular field. It's not that women choose careers that pay less - it's that careers dominated by women are frequently perceived to be less valuable to society and are therefore paid at a lower rate. Careers in which men historically dominated, but which later become "female professions", pay less when done by women. "Women make less remunerative life choices" seems like a fairly ignorant way to explain wage disparity.
I couldn't find anything about what wage gap may have existed for her prior to 1964, but after June 11, 1964 until 1986 when she retired she was probably paid the same as men in the same position.
Edit: Found some more information, showing that she was likely paid the same wage as men for the same position:
"The pay and training received by the WAVES was
identical to the men's."[0].
From a biographical blurb on her:
"Rejected by the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services) in
1942 for not weighing enough, she was finally admitted in December of 1943
and in 1944 was commissioned as a lieutenant junior grade, thus beginning
her 42-year career with the Navy and her life-long relationship with
computers."
Sad to say, Grace Murray Hopper died January 1, 1992. She broke down many sexual discrimination barriers. She is the second woman ever to have a Naval vessel named after her. (The USS Hopper (DDG-70) is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer of the United States Navy.)
I am dubious about this "perceived to be less valuable to society and are therefore paid at a lower rate" idea. Wages are not set according to the social values of jobs. They are set according to how many people want to do the job. (supply) and how much money the employer can make by hiring someone (whence demand).
There are not many people who want to be petroleum engineers, because it is difficult and boring (i imagine, it's all pipes and oil and whatnot). However, oil companies make immense amounts of money from the work they do. Hence, they are paid a lot.
Lots of people want to be early childhood teachers, because it is noble and rewarding, it is, actually, greatly valued by society, and is not that academically demanding (it is tremendously personally demanding, of course). However, primary schools are not exactly profitable. Hence, they are not paid a lot.
So, i think the claim that "women make less remunerative life choices" does hold water. But here's the thing: that's not the problem. The problem is that the choices they happen to make are less remunerative, because of the operation of the above mechanism. The problem that needs fixing here is that people who choose to do work that is socially valuable but not directly connected to a mechanism of profit are not paid as well as those who do. The solution is something far more radical than just getting more women to take up engineering.
They are set according to how many people want to do the job. (supply) and how much money the employer can make by hiring someone (whence demand).
Not exactly; they are set by what people are willing to pay. Short-term profitability is one factor an employer takes into consideration.
...primary schools are not exactly profitable.
They are not profitable at all, which would mean teachers would not get paid at all under your model of supply and demand. I think what critics are getting at is that even ignoring the effects of sexism when men and women hold the same jobs, wages in male-dominated professions are driven by simplistic short-term profit considerations and discount social benefits (which translate ultimately into long-term profit for everyone). This results in systematic undervaluation of the kinds of work which tends to attract more women.
FTFY. For example, Petroleum engineering is anything but short-term. What matters is that there is a very direct attribution of profit to work done. The attribution to profit for work done in all the poorly paid professions is very very indirect.
Check out the prediction technique known as scenario planning most recently championed by Pierre Wack and Peter Schwartz at Royal Dutch Shell. There is a great case study of its use by Royal Dutch Shell when planning on whether or not it was a good investment to build an oil platform in the north sea. The conclusions in that particular case study included a pretty solid argument predicting the fall of the soviet union and its causes well before anyone else was predicting such a think.
> They are not profitable at all, which would mean teachers would not get paid at all under your model of supply and demand.
I imagine private schools are very profitable, but most students and teachers go to public schools which are funded by government (and then from taxpayers).
The difference here isn't between "models", but between the free market and government funding. Only government can throw bags of money at stuff that's "socially valuable".
It is, actually. It's a different economic model (ie, formula) to express demand solely as a function of profitability than it is to describe it as driven by what someone is willing to pay, one possible factor in which is their profit motive. The reality is that we pay for things all the time without regard to their profitability. The fact that for-profit schools exist does not mean that there is no other valid rationale for paying teachers besides profit.
> They are not profitable at all, which would mean teachers would not get paid at all under your model of supply and demand.
I think profit is used differently depending on context. I would guess this is a reference to 'profit' in the economic sense of the word. In that case, that is profit for the firm i.e. taking salary into account.
Another industry that's traditionally taken as an example of zero-profitability is local [non-chain] restaurants.
I went back and looked at those two tables again and think there may be another issue at play.
If you look at those two tables, the immediately obvious difference is that many of the jobs in the first table (male dominated) are technical jobs that are more likely to be solitary in nature (or have more alone time involved in general) and those in the second category are social/verbal in nature. That's the obvious difference, but does nothing to address/explain your observation about supply versus demand, at least not on the surface.
Most if not all of the jobs in the first table happen to also be jobs in fields that get bigger with the number of discoveries and the amount of progress made. Take one many of us are familiar with, computer science. The more progress in the field of computing there is, the more day to day problems can be solved with computers and the more reinventing of solutions in new languages or on new systems. Computing in general is a field where the more progress there is, the faster the growth of the field in terms of jobs available to tackle the problems that are are now solvable by the field.
This is generally applicable to all the jobs in the first table. They all operate on the frontier of what is possible and solutions invented today produces demand for more people to work on new solutions built on those old solutions. Essentially for those fields, job growth is somewhat exponential or at grows with the product of population growth multiplied by inventions in that field. In a way, this above average job growth/demand of those in the first category is a corollary to the Luddite Fallacy. The first list is essentially a list of the fields where technological advances are generating the most new jobs.
The demand for least remunerative jobs on the other hand basically all grow approximately linearly with population growth. For example, it doesn't matter how many new ways we invent to teach children, treat psychiatric patients or deal with the problems of homelessness or domestic abuse, the number of teachers, psychologists/psychiatrists and social workers needed is going to be relatively constant per capita.
Obviously none of this addresses the issue of why women generally make less remunerative life choices, but it does explain why those jobs on the first list are likely to always be paid more and why the jobs on the second list are likely to see little or no growth how remunerative they can be, possibly ever.
The differences in remuneration between the first and second lists is probably only going to get worse regardless of whether men or women are doing the work. This is because the challenges in those fields represented by the first list are probably going to start pushing the limits of individual human capacity. Most of the low hanging fruits of progress in those fields have been delivered. The problems remaining in those fields are becoming hard enough that fewer and fewer people have the capacity to deliver solutions despite the increase in demand by society to solve those problems.
With respect to gender inequality, given this prediction, what we can hope for is that the income disparity between those two tables will become so wide that the best and brightest women will act in their rational self interest (economically) and choose careers in the first category with greater frequency until only the best and brightest, regardless of gender, are filling in positions made available by all new job growth in those categories.
Hey, apparently patriarchy costs women 23% of their wages. But I want to ignore 18% of that. That leaves me with 5% which I don't think is a problem. And I'm a woman, so I can't possibly be perpetuating patriarchy, can I?
This article is typical of the hateful shit that gets too many HN upvotes. It starts with a headline saying that women don't get paid less than men, but then shows that they do, argues that the gap is less than we think (but still exists) and then argues that it's all the fault of women anyway.
It does have an interesting bit in a tble though:
1. Petroleum Engineering: 87% male
2. Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male
3. Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male
4. Aerospace Engineering: 88% male
5. Chemical Engineering: 72% male
6. Electrical Engineering: 89% male
7. Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male
8. Mechanical Engineering: 90% male
9. Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male
10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male
Seems like mathematics and computer science are doing reasonably well at recruitin women. Better than anything but pharmacy. That's good.
This didn't get upvotes because it's "hateful shit", but because it focuses on facts and statistics (which happen to be pretty hard to argue with in this case), and the population that is HNers like facts and statistics, especially when it helps provide clarity to a controversial topic. I don't know about anyone else, but I upvoted this because those two tables were valuable information which I did not know previously. I didn't upvote it based on the prose around the tables.
Can you instead find a factual/statistical counter argument instead of discounting the entire article because you disagree with the conclusions? Or at the very least, provide a different constructive conclusion based on the facts/statistics presented if you happen to disagree with theirs.
This probably also got upvotes because it promotes "less wrong" and it's an articles correcting someone who was flat out wrong, that someone one is POTUS and the flat out wrong statement was made during POTUS' most important speech of the year, the state of the union address. Duty calls.
> Seems like mathematics and computer science are doing reasonably well at recruitin women. Better than anything but pharmacy. That's good.
I would imagine that 33% female is almost entirely due to mathematics. The percentage of female C.S. majors in the U.S. is very low. (No source, but I am a C.S. professor who used to be a math professor.)
I really wish we could stop focusing on statistics based on a gender binary and instead used a continuous measure for masculine/feminine traits like ring to index finger ratios instead, since that is a pretty solid proxy for the levels of testosterone present in the womb during gestation.
The Daily Beast denies Obama's statement A:"Women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns" and conclude B:"No, Women Don't Make Less Money Than Men," a non sequitur. Unfortunately, A and B aren't mutually exclusive, so not-A doesn't imply B.
So, Yes, Women Do Make Less Money Than Men (even after controlling for different life-choices). It's just that the wage gap isn't nearly as wide as Obama said. Obama exaggerated the wage gap. But Daily Beast made an invalid argument and reached a false conclusion.
False dilemma seems to be programmed into the US psyche. For instance, they seem to think they need to choose between Democrats and Republicans, and dismiss third parties. This kind of manichean thinking, reinforced by poorly thought out op-ed pieces like this, make civilized conversation and progress in the US difficult.
21 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 60.2 ms ] threadEdit: Found some more information, showing that she was likely paid the same wage as men for the same position:
From a biographical blurb on her: [0] http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/AirSpace/text...[1] http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/alumni/grace-murray-hopper....
There are not many people who want to be petroleum engineers, because it is difficult and boring (i imagine, it's all pipes and oil and whatnot). However, oil companies make immense amounts of money from the work they do. Hence, they are paid a lot.
Lots of people want to be early childhood teachers, because it is noble and rewarding, it is, actually, greatly valued by society, and is not that academically demanding (it is tremendously personally demanding, of course). However, primary schools are not exactly profitable. Hence, they are not paid a lot.
So, i think the claim that "women make less remunerative life choices" does hold water. But here's the thing: that's not the problem. The problem is that the choices they happen to make are less remunerative, because of the operation of the above mechanism. The problem that needs fixing here is that people who choose to do work that is socially valuable but not directly connected to a mechanism of profit are not paid as well as those who do. The solution is something far more radical than just getting more women to take up engineering.
Not exactly; they are set by what people are willing to pay. Short-term profitability is one factor an employer takes into consideration.
...primary schools are not exactly profitable.
They are not profitable at all, which would mean teachers would not get paid at all under your model of supply and demand. I think what critics are getting at is that even ignoring the effects of sexism when men and women hold the same jobs, wages in male-dominated professions are driven by simplistic short-term profit considerations and discount social benefits (which translate ultimately into long-term profit for everyone). This results in systematic undervaluation of the kinds of work which tends to attract more women.
I imagine private schools are very profitable, but most students and teachers go to public schools which are funded by government (and then from taxpayers).
The difference here isn't between "models", but between the free market and government funding. Only government can throw bags of money at stuff that's "socially valuable".
It is, actually. It's a different economic model (ie, formula) to express demand solely as a function of profitability than it is to describe it as driven by what someone is willing to pay, one possible factor in which is their profit motive. The reality is that we pay for things all the time without regard to their profitability. The fact that for-profit schools exist does not mean that there is no other valid rationale for paying teachers besides profit.
I think profit is used differently depending on context. I would guess this is a reference to 'profit' in the economic sense of the word. In that case, that is profit for the firm i.e. taking salary into account.
Another industry that's traditionally taken as an example of zero-profitability is local [non-chain] restaurants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-profit_condition
If you look at those two tables, the immediately obvious difference is that many of the jobs in the first table (male dominated) are technical jobs that are more likely to be solitary in nature (or have more alone time involved in general) and those in the second category are social/verbal in nature. That's the obvious difference, but does nothing to address/explain your observation about supply versus demand, at least not on the surface.
Most if not all of the jobs in the first table happen to also be jobs in fields that get bigger with the number of discoveries and the amount of progress made. Take one many of us are familiar with, computer science. The more progress in the field of computing there is, the more day to day problems can be solved with computers and the more reinventing of solutions in new languages or on new systems. Computing in general is a field where the more progress there is, the faster the growth of the field in terms of jobs available to tackle the problems that are are now solvable by the field.
This is generally applicable to all the jobs in the first table. They all operate on the frontier of what is possible and solutions invented today produces demand for more people to work on new solutions built on those old solutions. Essentially for those fields, job growth is somewhat exponential or at grows with the product of population growth multiplied by inventions in that field. In a way, this above average job growth/demand of those in the first category is a corollary to the Luddite Fallacy. The first list is essentially a list of the fields where technological advances are generating the most new jobs.
The demand for least remunerative jobs on the other hand basically all grow approximately linearly with population growth. For example, it doesn't matter how many new ways we invent to teach children, treat psychiatric patients or deal with the problems of homelessness or domestic abuse, the number of teachers, psychologists/psychiatrists and social workers needed is going to be relatively constant per capita.
Obviously none of this addresses the issue of why women generally make less remunerative life choices, but it does explain why those jobs on the first list are likely to always be paid more and why the jobs on the second list are likely to see little or no growth how remunerative they can be, possibly ever.
The differences in remuneration between the first and second lists is probably only going to get worse regardless of whether men or women are doing the work. This is because the challenges in those fields represented by the first list are probably going to start pushing the limits of individual human capacity. Most of the low hanging fruits of progress in those fields have been delivered. The problems remaining in those fields are becoming hard enough that fewer and fewer people have the capacity to deliver solutions despite the increase in demand by society to solve those problems.
With respect to gender inequality, given this prediction, what we can hope for is that the income disparity between those two tables will become so wide that the best and brightest women will act in their rational self interest (economically) and choose careers in the first category with greater frequency until only the best and brightest, regardless of gender, are filling in positions made available by all new job growth in those categories.
It does have an interesting bit in a tble though:
1. Petroleum Engineering: 87% male 2. Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male 3. Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male 4. Aerospace Engineering: 88% male 5. Chemical Engineering: 72% male 6. Electrical Engineering: 89% male 7. Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male 8. Mechanical Engineering: 90% male 9. Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male 10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male
Seems like mathematics and computer science are doing reasonably well at recruitin women. Better than anything but pharmacy. That's good.
Can you instead find a factual/statistical counter argument instead of discounting the entire article because you disagree with the conclusions? Or at the very least, provide a different constructive conclusion based on the facts/statistics presented if you happen to disagree with theirs.
This probably also got upvotes because it promotes "less wrong" and it's an articles correcting someone who was flat out wrong, that someone one is POTUS and the flat out wrong statement was made during POTUS' most important speech of the year, the state of the union address. Duty calls.
http://xkcd.com/386/
> Seems like mathematics and computer science are doing reasonably well at recruitin women. Better than anything but pharmacy. That's good.
I would imagine that 33% female is almost entirely due to mathematics. The percentage of female C.S. majors in the U.S. is very low. (No source, but I am a C.S. professor who used to be a math professor.)
The Daily Beast denies Obama's statement A:"Women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns" and conclude B:"No, Women Don't Make Less Money Than Men," a non sequitur. Unfortunately, A and B aren't mutually exclusive, so not-A doesn't imply B.
Daily Beast refers to a "correction" printed in the Washington Post which says: "Women earn 91 cents for every dollar men earn--if you control for life choices." Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/women-earn...
So, Yes, Women Do Make Less Money Than Men (even after controlling for different life-choices). It's just that the wage gap isn't nearly as wide as Obama said. Obama exaggerated the wage gap. But Daily Beast made an invalid argument and reached a false conclusion.
False dilemma seems to be programmed into the US psyche. For instance, they seem to think they need to choose between Democrats and Republicans, and dismiss third parties. This kind of manichean thinking, reinforced by poorly thought out op-ed pieces like this, make civilized conversation and progress in the US difficult.