Unfortunately science doesn't work like that. You don't look at gaps and then draw a conclusion out of the aether. If discrimination is the conclusion of looking at wage gaps between the sexes, then it is a false conclusion, because there is no way to falsify it. Sex discrimination within one work place might be able to be tested for, but across all industries is just loltastic question begging.

Prove to me that some of it is. I know for a fact both women and men are discriminated against in various contexts because I've seen it with my own eyes, but I certainly take reservation to the claim that such discrimination is one sided, or systemic. Unfortunately for you that actually is the premise that social scientists operate from. They assume a gap in wages between the sexes due to discrimination is a fact, and so anything other than total equality is seen as evidence of it still existing. This is a huge mistake of course.

I disagree. The goal is to FORCE companies, under threat, to ensure there is no hint of impropriety. That means they either give the females a raise or give the males a paycut.

Either way is an inherent unfairness. Just as it's unfair for a man who would rather spend much more of this time with his family and travelling to be paid the same as a man who works twice as hard, it is the same in your scenario.

Yeah, look, this is ridiculous. Disregarding all academic study and restricting the argument to the playing field of feels is not a reasonable way to go about anything.

I don't really disagree with this although it would be nice if you could back it up with some data.

It's a bit odd to accuse liberals of being overly emotional in the same paragraph where you talk about the election of Donald Trump. If there was ever an action based on emotions and not logic, it was pulling the lever for Donald Trump.

I actually agree with you that there is a segment of the American left that goes way too hard in the paint on the gender pay gap stuff, but I think it's bizarre how:
1. This one failing would cause you (or wil) to conclude the left is full of **** about everything, esp. considering
2. The right in America basically just makes up their facts. Say what you want about the left's views on the gender pay gap but they are mostly based on interpretation or possibly misinterpretation of real data gathered in good faith.

Fortunately, that's not what any of the studies do.

In general, there are a few different types of research related to this question. One type of study involves gathering a lot of data on wages, including data related to the educational level, years of experience, occupation, or geographic region of each worker, as well as other variables that influence wages. The NBER study I linked includes its own original research of this type, along with the overview they provide of other findings. They used PSID data from 1980-2010. With this kind of data, you basically work backwards. Starting from the raw gap, you use the associated data (education, experience, industry) to determine how much of the raw gap is caused by factors like differences in experience, education, industry, region, and so on. These are all taken to be factors which are non-discriminatory. What remains of the gap after controlling for these factors is usually called the "unexplained gap".

It is not possible, in this first kind of study, to demonstrate that the unexplained part of the gap is caused by discrimination in a completely unambiguous fashion, although one may infer the possibility of discrimination, and the more one controls for other possible explanations the stronger the inference becomes. But, alongside discrimination (however narrowly defined) there is room for other explanations which can't entirely be accounted for by the controls, especially cultural factors like willingness to negotiate. Here, though, the point I've tried to make before is that those more diffuse cultural factors are important from a feminist standpoint.

Earlier in the thread I discussed some of the research on negotiating differences between men and women, and I pointed out (tentatively) that there exists a study which suggests that very small process changes can be effective at removing cultural biases that influence the wage gap:

This is the kind of small change that I think the UK law, requiring companies to disclose their gaps, could help facilitate voluntarily. It's a good example of the point I've tried to make many times, that focusing on "discrimination" measured in a narrowly legal way may not be the best approach.

However, there are also studies that use more focused data sets and methodologies to try to isolate discrimination as a partial cause of the gap more accurately. For example, this 2012 study (article here) used a method that allowed them to eliminate factors like negotiation propensities.

Of course, because this study is much narrower in scope (smaller sample sizes; specific to academic STEM departments), the conclusions are harder to generalize. But when you triangulate all of the available research (see also, for example: wage gaps between college graduates in the same field one year after graduation), and when you consider the data in context with the history of the US, in which women's labor force participation didn't peak until the late 90s, and in which women couldn't own a credit card in their own name until the mid-1970s, the conclusion that discrimination makes up part of the wage gap is not particularly surprising. Our society has undergone an enormous cultural shift in attitudes about women working since the 60s. Even when lingering cultural attitudes and biases don't directly lead to discrimination, it's not surprising that they have an impact.

Another aspect of the data which points in the direction of the salience of discrimination or cultural biases in general is simply the fact that, as the NBER authors point out, the role of gendered differences in "human capital factors" (education level, years of experience, etc.) has diminished greatly over the last couple decades, but that has not caused the wage gap to disappear. Tables 2, 3, and 4 in the NBER paper help demonstrate this (p. 70-72). For example, in 1980, men on average had almost 7 years more experience than women in the workforce. This isn't surprising, the transition of women into the workforce was a relatively recent phenomenon, and so it's not surprising that differences in experience contributed a lot to the wage gap. In 2011, that number had shrunk to 1.4 years. Meanwhile, differences in education levels (on average) have completely disappeared. On the other hand, occupational selection still plays a large role in the wage gap, which has little to do with discrimination but much to do with cultural biases.

Hopefully the above provides some clarity on how I've reached the conclusions I've reached. I also hope it's sufficiently nuanced, as the explanations discussed go well beyond discrimination.

+1, and Juan and well named never got to address this point either, due to ensuing pissing match.

I distinctly remember addressing that point, with Juan.

The proposed law does not force companies to do anything other than publish data. If you want to argue that the law will nevertheless inevitably lead to some unjust outcome, you should actually make an argument in support of that conclusion, because relying on the characterization of the law as "forcing" it is simply wrong.

I doubt that either of us can make an argument on this that will be convincing to the other side, because any such argument is going to be highly speculative. I will continue merely to point to the UK example. I will be interested to see how it goes.

My feeling is that if the law leads to some undesirable outcome, that's something that should be taken into account. If possible, it could be tweaked to try to reduce that side effect. If that proved to be too difficult, it could be scrapped. But I won't accept the claim that the law "forces" an outcome that it clearly does not force for no reason at all.

LOL DID NOT READ

I think if you start with the same assumptions they are, the argument makes sense.

Basically they are assuming that:
1. ~all of the current wage gap is due to factors other than discrimination
2. there will be intense social pressure on companies that publish their wage gap to show a smaller or non-existent wage gap

I think if you accept those 2 assumptions as true that it makes sense to assume such a law would actually lead to discrimination against men.

Your problem lies with the axioms, not the deduction.

TD: I agree with that. But that's why I tried to back up to the argument that the wage gap represents a social problem we should care about.

I certainly agree that companies will face social pressure. That's entirely the point. It will force them to examine what they are doing and account for it. This is surely a burden, which is why I think the law should only target fairly large corporations. Obviously, one will only think the burden justified if one is convinced of the premise that the gender wage gap is a real problem.

However, given that we already have a lot of data about the existence of gender issues (both wages and numbers of workers) in fields like tech, I'm a bit skeptical that the level of social pressure will be so "enormous" and irrational as to be useless. To me it's like arguing that, in the absence of BLS data which we've had for years, if the government were to start to publishing general wage gap data it would lead to social pressure that would do more harm than good. That's pretty clearly not the case. There's already a big and contentious court case involving Google's gender wage gap. It hasn't gotten that much attention.

Well, right, but I think this represents the crux of the issue. If they don't accept this, then any law that attempts to close the gap will be looked on with at best indifference.

But they go a step further, in that their axiom is not only that "the fact there is a gap is not a problem" but actually that "the current gap is the correct gap; the fair gap which arises in the absence of any discrimination.

For that point of view, any law aimed at changing it is inherently discriminatory.

Yes, exactly.

Meh, I don't think this is really the same, mostly because the government data covers such a wide data set that it can really only be used to socially pressure "everyone" or "all men" or something, and the social pressure becomes nil when divided among such a large recipient set.


For what it's worth, I am in favor of laws making everyone's compensation public information. I think the confidentiality of compensation gives employers a huge advantage over employees in the negotiation process.

Bolded is an excellent point. I was thinking about how to prove my point on this sub-issue, that the law will force companies to commit disparate hiring policies favoring women over men of equal or slightly higher qualifications. I would search for articles saying, we should mandate affirmative action, people/academics/advocates saying we should implement X law to punish companies or men to "fix" the gap.

Possibly lawsuits themselves would provide some evidence.

Re 2., agreed, but it is more than social pressure. As well names said/hinted lawsuits will become easier, based on the gap, rather than based on individual circumstances. Other societal and institutional pressures/leverage may become available because of this.

The thing that sort of amuses me is I'm not really particularly attached to any specific new policy idea. I've used the disclosure law as an example of a way in which policy could attempt to shift outcomes without being too heavy handed. So, it's explicitly part of the appeal to me that I perceive this approach to be less heavy handed and less burdensome. If it turns out that doesn't work, then sure, I'd look for other methods.

I think in the long run consciousness raising and cultural change is going to be more important than policy, though. This is why I mainly focus on trying to provide the arguments that the problem exists, rather than on any very specific suggestions for new policies. It's also why I'm interested in the cultural factors that go well beyond discrimination, or why I'm interested in the nature/nurture kinds of arguments. I'm more of a wannabe anthropologist than a wannabe politician.

To win a discrimination lawsuit you're always going to have to provide evidence about the specific circumstance. That evidence will come via discovery. But public information will allow employees to become more aware of the potential that they are being discriminated against.

I think I could argue (although it would take some time to collect sources) that there is evidence that discrimination cases are too hard to mount now, and too hard to prove, so it's a good thing if it becomes slightly easier.

In order for (2) to be a problem though, you need to assume (1), or something close to (1).

If you change assumption (1) to be ~all of the gap is based on discrimination then (2) is a feature, not a bug.

Reality almost certainly lies somewhere between the original (1) and the (1) in this post.

(1) and (2) seem in tension to me. If social pressure is strong enough that merely publishing wage data would distort the labor market in favor of women, then why shouldn't I accept that social pressure against women in traditionally male-dominated fields isn't also strong enough to distort the market in favor of men? Theoretically, the more information two parties to a negotiation have the closer they should come to a Pareto-optimal outcome, and publishing wage data is just giving more information to employees.

I'm not stating that (1) and (2) are true. I'm saying that the people arguing against the disclosure law are assuming (1) and (2) and that from those assumptions their argument makes sense.

I don't think (1) and (2) are inherently contradictory though.

Also, I agree 100% with "Theoretically, the more information two parties to a negotiation have the closer they should come to a Pareto-optimal outcome, and publishing wage data is just giving more information to employees." which is why I said in a later post:

Agreed.

Agreed.

Not sure. I think there is a small amount of intentional discrimination in both directions.

I'm not disregarding all study, I'm saying I take studies posted from people with an agenda to push with a couple grains of salt. If I posted something it would be tossed out of hand by most liberals, so let's keep to the realm of deduction and see who wins.



I think like all human decisions, who to vote for is about logic and emotion. Personally I thought voting for Obama lite was a logically unsound decision, apart from the fact I despise the Clintons as well. I don't like Trump on a personal level FWIW.


Lol no it's just one of many failings, but this thread is focused on it.

I disagree almost entirely. I think it is more often liberals who have a pre-determined conclusion about the nature of reality and then don't even use facts to back it up. They more just use emotion (are you against LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEEE?) and trigger words (fascist, nazi, racist, bigot, etc etc etc), and twist facts to beat people with logical arguments into submission. Which is really ironic considering one of the borgs prime directives is tolerance.

The pay gap was conceived and pushed forward by 2nd wave feminists in the 1970s. It was 78 cents then, and it's still 78 cents. The fact is progressive arguments aren't about equality, tolerance or any other new-wave virtue. They are about power, and they won't stop until their share of it is absolute.

If "something" is a scientific study then no, actually. That's just dumbass conservatives like you thinking that everyone's brains work the same as theirs, where they reject all facts they dislike.

Postmodernism means a lot of things, but philosophically it probably refers more to a rejection of the conception of reason characteristic of the Enlightenment and an acceptance of a more relativistic version. There are many conservative and religious thinkers who have accepted these criticisms and instead appealed to tradition or religion as the way to respond to the failure of the Enlightenment project. Alasdair MacIntyre (and I would argue his followers like Rod Dreher) and Peter Lawler are a couple examples.

Heh, I know, but if you can put together the conservative argument I'm hoping you can defend it as well.

I bet he can. Mad props. Do it for real Donkey

I think your point about the apparent tension between TD's (1) and (2) was interesting and somewhat valid. From a conservative standpoint though, I would link it to certain prevalent overarching beliefs that feminists, postmodernists, liberals, academics, social justice warriors, and etc. have gained too much power in society. I think that belief explains a large part of both premises actually.

No it's my experience. I know you personally would totally ignore any data i posted and jump all over my source and throw it out for being fascist, just like you jumped all over my inability to post imgur images as evidence for my stupidity and erroneous argumentation. You've proven yourself to be not quite up to the challenge here.

You seem to be more fair minded than most here so I will look over this in detail and write a response later.