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(http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/percent-bachelors-degrees-women-usa.png?w=873&h=907 http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com

(http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/percent-bachelors-degrees-women-usa.png?w=873&h=907 http://gasstationwithoutpumps.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/pe...) Shows that < 20% of CS & Engineering Degrees go to females in the US Google employs 30% females (http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.html) Facebook employs 31% (http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-diverse-facebook/ http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/06/building-a-more-diverse-...) Amazon employs 37% (http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tb_surl_diversity/?node=10080092011 http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tb_surl_diversity/?node=10080092...) LinkedIn employs 39% (http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-workforce-diversity/ http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/06/12/linkedins-workforce-dive...) Obviously these companies need to hire employees to do non-engineering tasks and in an effort to seem "diverse" They likely hire only females for these jobs. It would make sense that the company had 20%/80% doing actual engineering work as there is no reason females cannot do just as good a job with the same experience. That means that half the females hired at these companies are doing non-engineering work which pays lower. This would account for the pay gap. When people ask for further diversity at these companies and equal pay what they are asking is to give an unfair advantage to the less qualified. I am aware this is an unpopular opinion but I felt I needed to post it as I saw someone else posted it and then took it down after being harassed.

skybrian 12y ago
Please do some research. What you're missing is that the pay gap is measured between people in similar jobs.
- sbilstein 12y ago
  Yes. There are two pay gaps the way I understand things: 1) Females in the US are generally employed in less profitable fields for a whole host of reasons like access to education, poor work conditions for mothers, etc. This is where that 83 cents on a dollar stat comes from... 2) Females within the same field also see generally less pay on average for reasons such as hiring bias, raise bias, limited career mobility due to family obligations, and many more.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  I recently did some research on exactly this topic. What I discovered is that the pay gap for people doing the same/similar job with the same level of experience and working the same hours is fairly small if it exists at all. Different studies measure it as between 0 and 7 percent "unexplained" pay gap (ie, not a result of degree, experience, hours worked, or other legitimate differences.) And it's not like these were all right-wing studies; some were coming from left-wing women's labor organizations and still saying they couldn't detect a wage gap after controlling for the relevant factors. The one "counterexample" someone tried to post for me was about freshly hired women in medicine, who make less than freshly hired men in virtually every medical specialty -- but the study they cherry-picked data from actually discussed how the pay gap between men and women in the same specialty had widened recently, specifically because women were negotiating more non-salary perks (like family-friendly hours) in exchange for lower salary. The actual amount of proveable wage discrimination in the US is very small -- I was looking at labor department statistics, and the total for discrimination settlements was measured in millions (in an economy measured in trillions). This included both out of court settlements and court-mandated settlements. I don't deny that some wage discrimination exists. But the data suggests it's not nearly as widespread or systematic as commonly believed. (And IMO it's self-evident that it's not -- because if it was, the economic opportunity for companies paying women fairly would be staggering. They could get the cream of the crop of women for average male salaries.)
bonafidebob 12y ago
Another factor is that the demographics are changing over time, with the percentage of women in CS dropping (dramatically) in recent years. The demographics are for the whole workforce, not just college hires. It's also not unusual to get into CS/Engineering from a related field. For example, for some reason I see a lot of technical candidates with physics degrees.
dwild 12y ago
So much people have a hard time understanding that they actually discriminate while they are trying to fix discrimination. I don't believe it's the way to solve it, at least, it's not a way that I respect. I can't respect discrimination, even if people believe it's the way to solve discrimination.

skybrian 12y ago

Please do some research. What you're missing is that the pay gap is measured between people in similar jobs.

sbilstein 12y ago
Yes. There are two pay gaps the way I understand things: 1) Females in the US are generally employed in less profitable fields for a whole host of reasons like access to education, poor work conditions for mothers, etc. This is where that 83 cents on a dollar stat comes from... 2) Females within the same field also see generally less pay on average for reasons such as hiring bias, raise bias, limited career mobility due to family obligations, and many more.
lotharbot 12y ago
I recently did some research on exactly this topic. What I discovered is that the pay gap for people doing the same/similar job with the same level of experience and working the same hours is fairly small if it exists at all. Different studies measure it as between 0 and 7 percent "unexplained" pay gap (ie, not a result of degree, experience, hours worked, or other legitimate differences.) And it's not like these were all right-wing studies; some were coming from left-wing women's labor organizations and still saying they couldn't detect a wage gap after controlling for the relevant factors. The one "counterexample" someone tried to post for me was about freshly hired women in medicine, who make less than freshly hired men in virtually every medical specialty -- but the study they cherry-picked data from actually discussed how the pay gap between men and women in the same specialty had widened recently, specifically because women were negotiating more non-salary perks (like family-friendly hours) in exchange for lower salary. The actual amount of proveable wage discrimination in the US is very small -- I was looking at labor department statistics, and the total for discrimination settlements was measured in millions (in an economy measured in trillions). This included both out of court settlements and court-mandated settlements. I don't deny that some wage discrimination exists. But the data suggests it's not nearly as widespread or systematic as commonly believed. (And IMO it's self-evident that it's not -- because if it was, the economic opportunity for companies paying women fairly would be staggering. They could get the cream of the crop of women for average male salaries.)

bonafidebob 12y ago

Another factor is that the demographics are changing over time, with the percentage of women in CS dropping (dramatically) in recent years. The demographics are for the whole workforce, not just college hires. It's also not unusual to get into CS/Engineering from a related field. For example, for some reason I see a lot of technical candidates with physics degrees.

dwild 12y ago

So much people have a hard time understanding that they actually discriminate while they are trying to fix discrimination. I don't believe it's the way to solve it, at least, it's not a way that I respect. I can't respect discrimination, even if people believe it's the way to solve discrimination.