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All Else Being Equal: Disputing Claims of a Gender Pay Gap In Tech
An anonymous reader writes "Synthia Tan writes that when you investigate the actual data, controlling for non-gender factors (like number of hours worked) the gender pay gap seems to disappear. 'A longitudinal study of female engineers in the 1980s showed a wage penalty of essentially zero.' In some cases women make more than men: women who work between 30 and 39 hours a week make 111% of what their male counterparts make." The researchers were studying more recent data, too; what are things like on this front where you work?
The focus now needs to be on why women don't enter as many high paying fields (and whether that is even a problem at all).
I think a big part of it is that those jobs tend to come with a shitty work/life balance and cultures that encourage crazy hours (especially in engineering type positions). Women tend to be more into the work/life balance and tend to have more time obligations outside of work (kids being the big one).
The only other argument that makes any sense to me is established culture, which kinda ties into that. An office full of mostly guys is going to have a very guy culture, same as an office full of women is going to have a women culture. All the little silly office stuff on it's own probably doesn't matter, but collectively I could see it making a job unappealing. I have a hard time listening to a female coworker talk about her kids for like a half hour at lunch.. an office filled with women who do this constantly would probably drive me insane, so I can see the reverse being true.
Even if the wife has a full time job, she still has to do the majority of the work at home.
Says who?
I remember when I first read about these issues, 30 years ago, one of the surveys claiming that women did the majority of work at home, counted exterior house maintenance, yard maintenance, and car maintenance as mens' hobbies instead of work at thome.
Jeesuz.. are you indoctrinated with political correctness or are you just prematurely trying to fend off flames? I've worked with many female engineers and scientists, and was married to one for nearly 20 years.
Three biggest factors I see:
1. Women stop to have children, and the *may* come back to the work force. Many never do, so there aren't as many females in senior paying positions.
The next two are anecdotes I've noticed over my own career that seem to be a constant theme (e.g. I legitimately think there's a trend):
2. Women are weaker negotiators during the hiring and raise/evaluation phases. While there are some monster bitches out there, they're not called the 'fairer sex' for nothing. Men are much more likely to take a stand and risk their job for what they deem to be 'fair'.
3. Women get sick of the engineering work environment, the lack of personal fulfillment, and say 'to hell with this, I'm out of here".
I'm the wife in the situation. I just wrote my husband an $800 check for my cut of the mortgage and food last month. Problem?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
but most women I have talked to that dropped out of STEM did so more because of problems they encountered with coworkers and managers.
Most of the men I know that have dropped out of STEM did so because of problems they encountered with coworkers and managers through out their careers. They got tired of the crap, but the stuck it out for a long time. From what you are saying, women don't stick it out as long. BTW, you don't mention what the problems were. Was it because the manager wanted her to work 60+ hours per week? Was it because she was expected to be available on vacation? Was it because she was expected to be on-call? Was it because the co-workers got tired of swapping shifts, on-calls, etc?
The same quality of work is often praised more for a male then a female
Really? do you have any evidence to back this up? Or, is it that you considered your work to be the same quality as your male counterparts and your boss didn't?
Your post is just you grasping at straws to justify your preconceived bias.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.