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Female Uber Drivers Get Paid Less Than Men, Says Study (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pay-discrimination dept.

According to a new study by Uber and Stanford economists, male Uber drivers get paid 7 percent more than their female counterparts in the U.S. "That's surprising, because Uber's driver assignments and pay are gender-blind, meaning a driver's gender isn't considered when matching riders or assigning fares," reports Recode. "Rather, pay has to do with trip length, distance and whether it's happening during surge-price hours or not." From the report: There are more male drivers -- women make up 27 percent of Uber drivers in the U.S. -- and male drivers tend to work longer hours. However, on an hourly rate, women still make less, according to the data, which measured trips by 1.8 million drivers from 2015 to 2017. According to the study, discrimination on the customer side isn't the reason for the pay gap, either. So why are female Uber drivers paid less than men? The study points to three reasons that make the gap disappear:

When and where: The times and places female Uber drivers work seem to be less profitable. That could be fewer overnight shifts, shifts with shorter wait times or surge-price shifts than men.
Driver experience: Drivers who've been with Uber longer get paid more, on account of knowing which routes and times tend to pay more. In general, men work for Uber longer than women so they are more experienced. The attrition rate after six months is 77 percent for women and 65 percent for men.
Speed: Male Uber drivers conduct more trips per hour than women, meaning they're actually driving faster, according to the data. More trips mean more money. About 50 percent of the earnings gap is explained away by differences in driving speed.

18 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Shocking. by poptix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Turns out the wage gap really is simply because of personal choices.

    --
    Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
    1. Re: Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Equal pay for eeual work. Sums it up nicely.

    2. Re:Shocking. by aussiekrom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Beyond being able to state that fact, it also allows anyone who wants to earn more see specifically what factors they might be able to change to do so.

    3. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Turns out the wage gap really is simply because of personal choices.

      In other news, the leading cause of poverty (that is, people who *become* poor) is getting knocked up at a young age and having a bunch of children you cannot afford instead of completing your education and establishing a career.

      Yet if you dare suggest things like delayed gratification, birth control, the fact that we all know where babies come from ... well it's amazing how people will villify you for that. Even people who did it that way themselves!

    4. Re:Shocking. by david_thornley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The next step is to investigate those personal choices. Why are women not taking the more profitable shifts? Why are they dropping out as drivers more than men? Why are we rewarding people for speeding? This just kicks the can a way down the road, rather than explaining everything.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    5. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      male

      Ah ha! There it is. Thank you so much; the blame has been properly assigned. Good work, comrade.

      Now on to solutions. Ultimately, we'll need to rid ourselves of these males, but that's going to take another generation or two. In the mean time we should supply female Uber drivers with an armed officer, and tax men to fund it.

    6. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In your troll universe, parents who already have careers never get laid off and lose their income.

      For one who so quickly calls "troll!" you sure do seem to have difficulty with reading comprehension. Assuming your "misunderstanding" was not intentional, of course.

      You see, getting laid off, otherwise losing a job/career, becoming disabled, etc. are also counted when causes of poverty are studied. Believe it or not, they're not in the same category as "oops, I'm still in my teens and got knocked up!" Yes, a minority of the time people become poor through no fault of their own, but that's not what "leading cause" means. This is easy to understand, except of course that failing to understand it gives you something to rail against. That's what matters, right?

      Sorry, this is not the easy slam-dunk victory you seem to have wanted. You are not the clever guy who noticed what others have overlooked all along. Shockingly, not everyone who disagrees with you is stupid. Care to argue with facts and reason? If you were raised by a single mother or something like that, you should admit you have a personal bias here. That would demonstrate integrity, emotional maturity, and the ability to be objective.

    7. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I submit that "whiteness" is cultural, and that anyone can become "white". Here are a few simple rules to do this: a) When in Rome, do as the Romans do. b) While in Rome, do not find fault with the Romans. c) Remember that anyone, by following the above rules, can become a Roman. Indeed, if you can understand how Romans act, and act that way yourself, you are perceived by the Romans as one of them -- or, at the very least, an ally. You will find that Romans reward those who are their allies, and prefer to do business with other Romans. And, since most people with money in Rome are Romans, it does one best to cultivate their company.

      If you constantly find fault with the Romans, you are not one of them, and they will close ranks in both subtle and overt ways against you. You will find that Romans do not want to do business with you, and anything you want to do which needs Roman help becomes harder.

      Indeed, what has happened to the Africans -- the most notable of the not-Romans? They have been bought off by rich Romans -- been thrown a few slices of bread and been given a few circuses -- so that they can feel like they have accomplished something, while their schools are deliberately given undereducated teachers who look like them to prevent upward mobility, and their children are convinced that single parenthood is liberating -- exactly the opposite of what is needed in Roman society to excel.

      A few escape that trap and become Romans -- only to be told by their peers that being Roman is something ugly which severs them forever from non-Roman Africans. Indeed, those who fight to become Romans are beset both by those rich Romans who do not want them, and by their own people, who do not realize that it might do them far better if they were to achieve true Roman citizenship. And yet, many manage; if their children can ignore the besmirchment of their parent by non-Romans, they are easily set up to be Romans too.

      To understand this, just watch TV.

    8. Re: Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Anecdotes are like assholes. I got a buddy whose wife pretty much runs his life. Says when he gets to eat, have sex, go out, he basically says yes mam no mam. She has him so warped, he thinks she is doing it because she loves him. Abuse.

      Also, please list contraceptives for men, I'll wait.

    9. Re:Shocking. by aphelion_rock · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They get paid the same, it is just that men prefer to work longer hours, take on riskier jobs and probably take less breaks/ spend less time chatting than women..

    10. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Surge-price time also seem to correspond with pick/drop kids off at school time.

    11. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, and importantly we can do without Slashdot's click bait like headline.

      The headline should have read 'female uber drivers earn less than men'.

    12. Re: Shocking. by PaulRivers10 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've been saying this forever. How many guys do you know move in with their girlfriend and live off her paying the rent? How many guys do you know have their girlfriend frequently pay for their meals? How many girls are mocked by guys because they still live at home? Not a lot. You know why? Because don't NEED to do the extra work to make more money like men do. Women earn less money because they can. Because they have a backup plan that involves a guy paying for their stuff. Feminism is about sacrificing women's happiness for more profits. That's why it hates families, sabotages relationships, promotes promiscous sex while fearing emotionally bonding sex. Because by taking away options from women, it forces women to make more sacrifices for money. If women are miserable it doesn't care, as long as women are more profitable.

    13. Re:Shocking. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes; it's why there are so many battered women's shelters around.

      Given the lack of men's shelters and the fact that actual rates of DV are about even across genders, I don't think this makes the point you think it does.

  2. feminists BTFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So in a completely gender blind pay scheme, women still manage to make less then men?
    Can all of you please shut the fuck up about the pay gap now?
    It's clear that any remaining difference is caused by women themselves.

    1. Re:feminists BTFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So in a completely gender blind pay scheme, women still manage to make less then men?
      Can all of you please shut the fuck up about the pay gap now?
      It's clear that any remaining difference is caused by women themselves.

      And here's the real take-away from that: since the differences are caused by women themselves, trying to artificially change them would be a total failure to treat women as equals by respecting their decisions!

      They're either equals who get to make their choices and experience the consequences just like men do, or they're delicate flowers who need to be protected from themselves. Can't have this one both ways (though a great effort is put towards trying and failing).

  3. "Get paid less" vs. "earn less" by katz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Glancing quickly at the headline, "Even female Uber drivers get paid less", one may get the impression that women drivers are discriminated against. The article could have gone with "Even female Uber drivers earn less than male drivers", but that phrase doesn't carry the same biting edge, does it..

  4. Re: How many of Slashdot's editors are women? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It does matter.

    I won't risk the future of my business (and those who rely on me to pay their bills and feed their families) on decisions made by illogical and deeply emotionally unstable people.

    The code might be great until they get pissy and do something stupid like kick out a great contributor because his private consensual sexual activities don't align with the politically correct safe space sensitivities of some other developers.

    But that could never happen, right?