as soon as i saw this thread I was like:

Ok, allow me to answer the question "Why is there demographic variance in race representation in technical and senior jobs?"

*drumroll please*

...


...

...I don't know

And yes! that is a perfectly reasonable answer. Indeed, suspension of judgement is the appropriate position to take in the absence of any evidence for an explanation.

What you're doing (although I concede you might not realise it) is a lot like when Christians challenge atheists to explain how the universe began if God didn't do it.

I don't know how or why the universe began, but I don't need an explanation in order to justify my disbelief in yours.

Likewise I don't have a 300-page thesis which perfectly explains every strand of demographic variance across races, but that doesn't commit me to believing any one particular explanation for it whatsoever.

I'm happy to take the theories as they come and judge them on their merits.

You offer the explanation that this variance is due to discrimination? Well, fine. Show me some evidence of discrimination.

The problem is that your explanation for why discrimination against women doesn't happen implies that discrimination against any group wouldn't happen. Here:

Quoting some gems before the thread becomes unreadable:
Gender inequality has been solved since the 70s, people!

SCIENCE itt.

Its actually a good indicator. The gap for same pay for same job was there then and its here now. Back then there where no extensive programs to fight the patriarchal subjugation of women in the workforce as we have right now. Feminists are screaming and clawing saying there is extensive discrimination and programs are formed to combat this injustice. The numbers still doesnt move.

To me that says someone is barking up the wrong tree. The biggest issue is that barking up this wrong tree is very lucrative. A social scientist in Sweden as an example pretty much need to adhere to the notion that women are opressed in the workforce, at home etc if you want any government or other funding. Politicians use the general difference in pay between men and women(occupational choice) like it is the pay for same job difference to further their careers since fighting for the seemingly oppressed against the power looks good.

Rasta, the problem with saying you don't know why there's a racial pay gap is that you seem extremely confident in your beliefs regarding gender. But if you are correct with your economic theories that means there must be some significant differences between the races too. Which doesn't seem likely to me. Maybe you're ok with that though.

There's not a lot of truth to the evil profit seeking company. The market can handle a lot of different types of inefficiencies.

Take some extreme examples (purely because it's easier to understand).

Let's say you live in a racist place where 75% of people are racist. A company can hire the minority group for half the wage. But in doing so it might lose access to 3/4 of its market. The wage inefficiency isn't going to be removed.

Or let's say you're hiring for a boys-club type job. And you can hire a women for 3/4 the wage. But in return you're going to alienate your other bro employees and make the cost to hire and retain them higher.

Or you might be in a small market that can only support 1 form. Say you are an accountant in a small rural area. If you're inefficient and pay more for a man when a woman would do the same work for less - there probably isn't going to be enough incentive for another form to start up and compete.

And so on.

I actually find the 'can we blame a business owner for discriminating against child-bearing age women' more interesting.

It seems like a real question rather than trying to pretend discrimination doesn't exist.

My answer is that children are generally useful to society and so we shouldn't push the personal costs onto one gender disproportionally.

Anytime someone questions the continued existence of sexism, I am going to link them to this thread.

You mean this thread?

Oh dear god

I have no answer to the 75% racist place scenario you brought up. It is a great example, but I was talking male v female and racism is a totally different animal IMO.

Why would you not hire the female for 3/4 the pay? I've never heard of a work place environment where a bunch of guys said they don't want to work with women. That doesn't mean there aren't a few places like it, but even if there are some I wouldn't think it's common enough where the market can wash out this nonsense.

Why are you assuming another firm won't hire a woman to undercut your above market accountant prices? They could hire the woman to go after your area and a neighboring county until you lower your prices or she takes a bunch of your clients.

And how do you plan on doing that?

Spot on!

You are clearly unfamiliar with the entire biotech industry and major law firms.

The point wasn't that there's a place that is 75% sexist (although I'm sure for particular jobs in particular places - there are examples). The point is that the idea that an efficient market solves these problems is just wrong.

It's common. Two simple examples "This is a man's job and I don't want to have to depend on a woman", or "If we hire a woman I'll have to stop making sexist jokes or talking about what I did at the club last weekend"

Because there may not be enough business to support two firms. And people buy goods and services based on more than just price (for example in a rural area it would be very hard to undercut an established professional that has a built up clientele). So a relatively small market inefficiency (the pay of a secretary in an office) will not be wiped out.

Edit: Note again, this last comment is back to the point that people confuse money with utility - just from a different angle. People don't maximize their financial benefit when making purchasing decisions. They maximize utility.

You start by making sure people realize that the issue exists and don't make ridiculous claims saying "Everything is perfect".

Then you put laws in place that prevent the practice. It's not perfect but it stops blatant abuse.

You put in place strong parental benefits - so that its not the women that has to take the majority of time off. Meaning that the expected cost of hiring a person in their 20s or 30s is more balanced between genders.

After that, who knows? You could take money from companies that don't have employees going on parental leave and distribute it to companies that do. So that you balance out the costs of hiring someone that may or may not leave.

I don't know - and its actually a hard problem. But the point is that its a real problem and pretending it doesn't exist is just stupid.

@hifi & jjshabado

You all are right that sexism is going on in small markets and in some individual industries and while the amount of sexism today is at the lowest point in the history of the world, you may be right that the market can't fix all of these wrongs.

A law forcing parents to take time off is just another barrier to hiring. Obamacare, increases in minimum wage, & forced paternal leave... Why would anyone hire anyone?

You forgot about how women are more likely to start working part-time or retire early to take care of kids. Maybe we should let daddy government create a law where anytime a couple wants a woman to start working less for the sake of the family both spouses have to go to court and the judge will flip a coin to see which spouse has to start working less.

Remember guys, bahbah fancies himself a financial "expert"

I'm not suggesting forced parental leave.


What are you even talking about here?

We're talking about discrimination taking into account similar jobs and experiences - so even if this made sense, its not relevant here.

I felt his advice was either code for that as a general approach or support for sexual discrimination. Hard to tell which but I'm not convinced it's good advice for a woman to bring it up at an interview as it's hard to see how at best it makes no difference.

I don't like the idea that we shouldn't discriminate against women because kids are useful.

It's not as if we would be ok with sexual discrimination if kids weren't useful although we might then be ok with discriminating against parents.

That seems to be the largely unspoken idea behind paternity leave.

The best idea imo is to make sure women are holding to senior/power positions in equal number as soon as reasonably possible. So much of the problem is the workplace still being a misogynistic environment - largely passive in that it's a residual of having evolved around a one worker one homekeeper family model. We can try to direct the change to a more gender equal workplace but in part it's something we have to discover.

You said you wanted to take money from companies that have employees that don't take parental leave & give it to those companies that have employees who do take the leave. That is pretty close to having forced parental leave.

In that last paragraph I was pointing out that the reason a company would lean toward hiring a man over a woman with the same resume is because the risk of having the guy become a dad and start working part time so he can spend time w/ the kid is significantly less than the woman doing the same thing. Therefore men are more in demand than women.

It's a fantastic ignore list builder.

Surprised bahbah has focused his Baghdad Bob like push to argue that the market has eliminated sexism and racism because....reasons....on this subject today. There's much more timely news out there that will rustle bahbah to the core when he sees it during his "work" as a "wealth advisor"