That's true. Also statistics can be used to deceive or they can be made up. Everyone who worked in research knows this. It's not difficult to twist statistics to get them to show what you want them to show. Much more important than that is understanding the underlying phenomenon.The statistics get misused grossly. Their utility is in identifying areas where there might be a problem. Then, the next step should be to investigate that area carefully and address actual instances of discrimination. Attempting to arrive at preset statistical goals just doesn't do justice to the complexity of free choice. We should be agnostic about what the optimal statistical landscape looks like. — Roke
My working hypothesis is that you've come to this from Jordan Peterson or a related video making an argument that the gender pay gap doesn't exist when including other variables.
To say that it doesn't exist is more than a bit of an exaggeration. It absolutely does, robustly, but to varying degrees in different countries. Even a very equal one like Norway - men make 27 pence extra per pound of woman earnings. The pay gap also exists when you break it down by occupation - though the difference between male and female wages decreases when women and men are employed in equal proportion in a given job (or occupational category). This is to say that controlling for occupation still evinces a pay gap.
If, however, you take the approach where median male earnings and female earnings on a yearly basis are linearly regressed upon a bunch of societal indicators - like occupation, work hours, age, time in current job - you'll probably see that occupation explains the most variance out of any predictor. At least this is how it breaks down in the UK. Nowhere near 100% of the variance (think, the trend of differences between women and men) is explained through the sum total of all predictors. UK analysis puts this somewhere between 30 and 50% of the variance. Which is to say, and Peterson is very fond of this formulation (when applied in other contexts) - at least 50% of the difference between men and women isn't explained by any socioeconomic factor other than gender!
Edit: The first paragraph is absolutely the right analysis for discerning whether there are pay gaps within occupation. It also applies to age and job experience with the same conclusion, go figure.
So, here is a factsheet, and I'll slip in an outright howler that Peterson's army of beta-male epigones seem to forget.
(1) Men tend to make more than women.
(2) Men tend to be in higher paying jobs than women.
(3) Men still make more than women when controlling for occupation (or other socio-economic factors).
(4) There is no personality test approaching common place enough to provide a society wide census of personality traits and earnings. Thus variation due to them cannot currently be modelled precisely in the population at large.
If you want me to provide some references for the UK I can. — fdrake
Jordan Peterson certainly has dominated his opponents so far. There are very few people on the left who could stand up to him at the moment I think. For example:Jordan Peterson — Maw
I think his main advantage is that he's a guy who is slightly more cultured and knowledgeable in a sea of idiots, which is what modern culture pretty much is.Jordan Peterson's competitive advantage is that he's primarily concerned with truth. He doesn't have to do mental gymnastics in service of ideology like his opponents. That's not to say he doesn't have an ideology or that he always succeeds in speaking the truth. The honesty is refreshing though, admirable guy. — Roke
Riiiight, a Harvard Professor compared with Shapiro. And Ayn Rand. Nice. >:OCertainly, Augustino, you are not equating a seemingly arbitrary journalist with a "left-wing intellectual". Just as most left-wing philosophers, or philosophers in general, rarely reference or confront Ayn Rand's Objectivism, so too, I imagine, they can safely ignore Peterson's unoriginal, uninteresting, self-help "philosophy". He resembles many modern intellectual conservatives (e.g. Ben Shapiro), who pimp out sound-bite friendly, cherry-picked statistics, or makes vapid claims sound meaningful by stating it with assertiveness and conviction, making it easily digestible to young, frustrated men, who are more interested in feeling right then being right. — Maw
That's not the same as being a Professor there. So my point was stated very well, thank you.And Ben Shapiro received his JD at Harvard Law, so I'm not sure what your point is exactly. — Maw
Maybe, so what?I guarantee there are many professors at Harvard who vehemently disagree with Peterson. — Maw
Right, I'm glad you finally remembered the subject of this thread after you brought up Peterson, and after you thought that having a JD from Harvard is the same as being a Professor there. However, it's time for me to go to sleep, not open threads atm.This thread is about the gender pay gap, not Peterson, so, I don't care to digress into that conversation here — Maw
Outside of the U.S., the report reveals the unadjusted and adjusted pay gaps in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and France. Findings in each of these markets are similar: a larger unadjusted pay gap that shrinks, but does not disappear, when additional factors such as worker experience, age, location and job title are included.
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
ABSTRACT
The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations*
Using PSID microdata over the 1980-2010, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably over this period. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution that at the middle or the bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women’s work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than say occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences. — blau & kahn
Are you trying to say that it doesn't matter what value a person brings to the company? Does just the occupation title matter? — Coldlight
"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.
Additional portions of the raw gender wage gap are attributable to other explanatory factors that have been identified in the existing economic literature, but cannot be analyzed satisfactorily using only data from the 2007 CPS. Those factors include, for example, health insurance, other fringe benefits, and detailed features of overtime work, which are sources of wage adjustments that compensate specific groups of workers for benefits or duties that disproportionately affect them. Analysis of such compensating wage adjustments generally requires data from several independent and, often, specialized sources".
Congratulations.Yes, Agustino, I mentioned Peterson (he was brought up before I mentioned him, however), and now I am ending the conversation lest we further digress off subject. — Maw
Oh really? Then why is it that you told me:I see you haven't lost your knack for putting words in my mouth. — Maw
You told me that for no reason? :s You brought up the fact that Ben Shapiro has a JD at Harvard when I told you that Peterson was a Professor there. And previously you compared Peterson with both Shapiro and Ayn Rand. Seems like you're not aware of what you're saying.And Ben Shapiro received his JD at Harvard Law, so I'm not sure what your point is exactly. — Maw
To show you that Peterson is not comparable with Ayn Rand or Shapiro, and Peterson is actually an intellectual in today's age.What I don't understand is you bringing up the fact that Peterson used to teach at Harvard. — Maw
No.Does that make him smarter than Shapiro? Does it make him better than him, because he had an occupation at an elite institution whereas Shapiro "merely" graduated there? — Maw
It must be difficult for you to always lose our debates :PDon't. I always seem to forget how unbearable it can be to converse with you. — Maw
1. policy differences. For instance, until the seventies it was common for employers to have official full-time rates of pay for a certain job (eg clerk level 4) differentiated by sex — andrewk
2. non-policy, employer-instigated differences. This is when there is no explicit policy, but decision-makers at the employer tend to give promotions and pay rises to men more readily than to women, given the same performance profile. I would also include in this cases where employers treat women badly with the aim of discouraging them from applying for or retaining higher-paying roles. For instance 'boys-club' cultures in senior management and on boards may make women feel too uncomfortable in those environments to be prepared to put up with it. — andrewk
3. non-policy, non-employer-instigated differences. This is where the employee voluntarily, without coercion, makes choices that lead to lower pay - eg not applying for promotions because they don't want the stress or longer hours, or choosing occupations that have lower pay, because those occupations appeal to them more. — andrewk
I think most would agree that type 2 is regrettable and we should try to remove it from workplaces. The trouble is that, being non-policy, it is undocumented and thus hard to detect. Most developed countries have anti-discrimination laws that forbid such behaviour, but there is a standard of proof that must be met in any individual case before any redress can be obtained. — andrewk
Law is not the only available measure though. Consciousness-raising campaigns are another, eg advertising against discrimination, similar to what is done for domestic violence or racism. Again there is a balancing act though, as it is taxpayers' money that funds such campaigns, and there is debate about their effectiveness. — andrewk
Finally, there is type 3. My impression is that most people are not motivated to try to do anything about type 3, but I think some are. — andrewk
Forgive me for saying so, but that's pretty arrogant and spoken with authority that you haven't earned yourself, especially if you do not share knowledge about, or the particulars of, others' experience. You also make some broad projections on whether it can or can't still happen to women even if they do "compete and try to improve their situation". — Uneducated Pleb
And even if it's not a myth, it's not something that we should actively seek to eliminate (I don't see why women should, on average, have equal pay with men - women don't do the same jobs, on average, as men, and even if they did, it's again a question of value added). By all means this equality shouldn't be centrally planned, if it arises naturally, no problem. — Agustino
It's not that they won't pay them, it's simply that they have a lot of learning to do, and they're not willing to pay people to learn. Most students at that age go in a company and they don't even know what's what - you need someone to babysit them, they are expensive, they don't really know how things go, etc. etc. It's more of a hassle than anything else - that's why small businesses, for the most part, don't accept students. — Agustino
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