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Google Schools US Government About Gender Pay Gap (cnet.com)
Google wants the US government to know that it takes gender pay equity very seriously -- and is baffled by the contention that a gap exists at the tech giant. From a report: In responding to allegations lodged by the US Department of Labor that Google systematically pays its female employees less than it pays men, the search giant said in a blog post that employee gender doesn't factor into compensation decisions. Google described the process that it arrives at suggested compensation as "extremely scientific and robust," relying on the employee's role, job level and location, as well as recent performance ratings. What isn't considered in determining pay is whether the employee is male or female -- that information is masked out to those making the compensation decisions, Eileen Naughton, Google vice president for People Operations, explained in the post late Tuesday. "The analysts who calculate the suggested amounts do not have access to employees' gender data," Naughton wrote. "An employee's manager has limited discretion to adjust the suggested amount, providing they cite a legitimate adjustment rationale.
Women who do not have children get paid the same or more. But when you have to take several weeks or months off to take care of a child you slow your career. So don't have kids if you want a big pay check. If you want to have the biological and emotional fulfillment of giving birth and raising a child then realize you have to sacrifice your overall income.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
... is that the so-called "gender pay gap" is actually due to life decisions, not rampant sexism?
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Except google refuses to reveal statistics. All they have shown is a power point slide that says "trust us" and we are supposed to trust them? Show us the data if you have nothing to hide.
no, pay gap is mythical, just google that phrase. it is a meme by femi-nazis who want superiority and more pay than a man for less effort.
I recently read an article by a lady who said she was being discriminated on pay, I think it was on the BBC. What was funny is in it she described exactly why it was that she got paid less, and it wasn't discrimination. She said she'd been at the company for like 7 years, she'd risen through the ranks to a management role and discovered a guy who'd been there 6 months made more than her. And then she went on about taking the job straight out of college and thought that being under a female director would be taken care of. She dusted off her resume, applied for new jobs and got offers even higher than her highest asking price.
My thoughts on that were "well yeah, of course. It's not discrimination, but the old adage 'the best way to get a pay raise is to get a new job'". I do wonder how much of the pay gap is simply men switching jobs and women staying put. Sorry, but that's not discrimination, it's just that companies don't take care of their employees, and that's not a gender specific thing, if men stayed around, they'd have the lower wages as well. They just choose to jump ship more readily.
Company accused of bias claims there is no bias. No one got "schooled."
>Men are dumb enough to fall into the trap of the 60-hour work week with no life balance and women seem to not be.
As a middle-aged career man, I'm marginally qualified to respond to this with authority.
I WANTED to work those hours at the expense of outside life. I ENJOYED it. A young man is full of enthusiasm and competitiveness. The chance to succeed at something I was told couldn't be done, the challenge of proving I was the best... that was worth more than my paycheque to me.
Of course I slowed down a bit with time, and now I have a nice, strong dividing line between work and personal life, but I don't regret those early years at all. They were extremely satisfying.
Maybe that's testosterone, and maybe that's why women don't have that experience as a general rule, but so what? You couldn't have made me slow down and smell the roses and even if you had, it would have LOWERED my perceived quality of life at the time.
So from some people's point of view I gave up a decade of my personal life in return for a significant career advancement. I'm OK with that.
More importantly, *any woman can choose to do the same thing*. If they don't, *that is also their right*.
My ex-wife and I planned for divorce, and surprise surprise we got divorced. My wife and I plan for "the two shall become one, till death do you part, for better or worse" and indeed we've worked through tough times and come out stronger.
Partly that's related to having our daughter - a decision that we feel like going our separate ways is no longer possible (we'll always be connected, like it or not), and to the extent it's possible, it's not right - I have no right to take away my daughter's father or mother just because I feel like boning some other chick. I've made a COMMITMENT to my family.
That works for us largely because we look at everything in our marriage, including all conflicts, from the perspective of *we*. If your arm is causing pain, you don't get mad at your arm, you figure out how to heal it. If my foot is giving me trouble, I don't yell at my foot (or cut it off), I care for it. If my wife is giving me trouble, I don't yell at my wife, or divorce my wife, I care for my wife. Probably sometimes you're not sure what to do - perhaps you want to eat cake, but you also want to lose weight. You want to buy a new toy, but you also want to save for a house. You think about these things, basically "discuss them with yourself." We are the same way - sometimes we want this and we want that. We think, discuss, and we decide. We (my wife and I) don't fight and get angry when we have two different viewpoints, anymore that you fight with yourself when you have two perspectives on something.
That's worked for us all the way to even when we've been attracted to someone else. We have a problem, we've been having inappropriate conversations with someone we find attractive. That's dangerous to us, our family. So how do we address this to protect ourselves from our family being torn apart? If she cheated on me, it wouldn't hurt *me*, it would hurt *her*, our daughter, AND me - it would hurt *us*. So we treat inappropriate conversations as a danger that could hurt us.
Having said all that, we are aware that divorce happens, and she's going to finish her degree - after she's more clear about what kind of degree she wants. During the roughest part of our marriage, during a mental health crisis, there was a risk that the person going through the mental health issues might do something crazy, and we took some precautions during that time in case we had to seperate. But generally, you tend to get what you plan for, so we don't plan on divorce.