This denialism is not compatible with the facts. While part of the gender pay gap can be explained by the factors you describe, not all of it can. This unexplained part is often assumed to be (largely) due to discrimination. This unexplained part has also been shrinking over time, indicating that discrimination has decreased. (See
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13524-014-0320-... )
Here are journal articles on the topics, showing that economic researchers are covering the topic:
Wikipedia do mention the distinction between unadjusted versus adjusted pay gap in the Gender pay gap article, but sadly the article is very sparse on details.
It is the adjusted pay gap that is disputed. No one is really disputing unadjusted pay gap, through some consider that unadjusted pay gap should include everyone including those unemployed. The problem with unadjusted pay gap is that it ignore context.
With context we get a very large variation in the data sets, and large variation in control variables. There is no standard in what variable to use with adjusted pay gap.
Variables commonly cited when comparing full time employed men and women is that men work almost an hour longer per day than women for the same job. Women also use about 50% more sick days, and if I remember right from a study from Norway, about 200% more likely to have children compared to men. Those that have children are then also more likely to stay at home to take care of them, which is a related issue but not the same as pay gap. Overtime is an other factor which correlates with pay raise, as is moving work location and changing employer.
A good sign when I look at such studies is if they can use the same data to predict whom will get a pay raise within the same gender group. The better they can do that the better they can account for those factors when comparing the gender groups to each other. Sadly very few studies does this.
The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues. As I am not an economist myself, I do not want to weigh in on the specific final conclusion the literature arrives at. All I can say, that multiple studies seem to find an unexplained part which is taken to be due to discrimination.
I think a good comparison is to look at global warming studies. They too have a lot of unexplained data which are unaccounted for which could be due to natural phenomenon, but their conclusion is that global warming is man made and those unexplained parts are just unaccounted variables.
A scientific method to address the mix of unexplained data is to use prediction models on the assumption that the theory is correct and see if it works to explain the data. In the case of global warming we know that the prediction model does not work and the measured data is significant outside of what a natural phenomenon would look like. scientists has thus mostly discarded the theory of natural phenomenon and instead looked to combine the multiple studies and find man made explanations for unexplained data.
The same thing was done with gender pay. If we assume gender discrimination is causing the gender pay gap then a more gender equal nation should predictable have a lower gender pay gap. What we get instead is the opposite, the so called gender-equality paradox, where the more gender equal a nation is the higher the gender pay gap becomes. We really should follow the same scientific standard as global warming scientists and discard the theory of discrimination as the cause of gender pay gap, but we don't. Instead we see "half" of people trying to explain the failed predictions with the injection that the more gender equal nations is in reality less gender equal, and the other half arguing that it doesn't matter that the prediction model do not explain the data.
This is where I think most contention lies in the discussions around gender pay gap.
> The point of linking these studies was that economists study these issues
The sentence I said that triggered you was "0 economists are working on this problem", referring obviously to the pay gap caused by discrimination.
You have linked to inaccurate (as per comment above) studies that study whether there is a pay gap or not, and are inconclusive.
Since the pay gap as a problem--therefore not as a hard-to-measure occurrence but as a problem caused by discrimination--has not been proven, there are 0 economist working on this problem.
It's not been proven to be an actual problem that exists, and that's why no economist is working on fixing it.
I doubt your assessment of the literature. Since we do not seem to agree on this, I would defer to the opinion of specialists in this case. An independent panel of economists would thus have to settle the issue.
But your other argumentation is quite interesting. Do you also hold that 0 physicist ever worked on the theory of phlogiston? Or on ether? Neither of those to exist. Because your argumentation would also imply that. I would reject that suggestion. So even if I were to grant that this problem does not exist, which I do not, I would disagree with the conclusion of your post.
> But your other argumentation is quite interesting. Do you also hold that 0 physicist ever worked on the theory of phlogiston? Or on ether?
The pay gap as caused by discrimination has not been proven to be a problem. That's why there aren't people working on solving it.
I honestly don't know what the things you mentioned are, but I fail to see how physics are related to this topic. However, if you really have to use examples a better one would be that I'm saying that there weren't a lot of scientists working on curing AIDS before AIDS appeared.
> This unexplained part is often assumed to be (largely) due to discrimination
This is literally the part that is controversial, and you're asserting it as a given. Controlling for almost any confounding variable so far has reduced the wage gap, the majority of which was/is often put forward as primarily having been the consequence of discrimination to begin with.
There are things that are also simply very difficult to control for, but are certainly at play. Are you sure that productivity is being measured outside of hours worked? Aggressiveness in salary negotiation? Actual hours worked vs. full-time time presumption as all members being 40 hour week? I often see one study attempt to control for one factor and fail on another. Cartoonish discrimination strikes me personally as among the least likely defacto explanations for the remaining gap.
The most important IMHO is salary negotiation. Women are less prone to challenge what they're given. That's the reason why a razor for women that is identical but painted a different color is more expensive--women will buy it without challenging the price. Following the same pattern, women are less prone to both negotiate a better salary when hired and ask for a raise.
It's also true that women value people more than objects and work jobs where they take care of people instead of fiddling with objects, which pays less and is less scalable. Finally, less women get satisfaction from "being the best", so while there are a lot of women CEOs and in particular women politicians, most women are not attracted by the prospect of sacrificing everything to get to the top.
There are people that have been taught that there is discrimination, and will see it everywhere. With the pay gap--which would normally be explained by a variety of naturally-occurring things--they just jump to the conclusion that of course it MUST be caused by patriarchy and discrimination. Since it's a very hard thing to measure, you might even be able to find studies that "prove" this theory.
Those women lose however, because if they spent as much time working on the skills that would help them get more money (in particular negotiating skills) as much as they spend complaining about oppression or commiserating themselves, they would make the same if not more than men.
The most powerful people in Europe are women (Merkel, May, etc.). Either there is no powerful oppressive male patriarchy, or we really suck at it. Either way, women get become as successful as they are willing to work for, in western countries.
From Wikipedia I read: "a substantial portion of the pay gap (12%) remained unexplained.". Pretty small, and a lot smaller than what feminists claim the gap to be.
Then, at the end of the same section you linked: "In 2018, economists at the University of Chicago and Stanford University, working with Uber analyzing the gender pay gap of Uber drivers demonstrated an average 7% pay gap in a context where gender discrimination was not possible and pay was not negotiated, showing the difference entirely explainable as the difference in average productivity between men and women".
Am I mistaken in interpreting this to mean that only 5% is unexplained, and that "unexplained" does not mean evil patriarchy?
Any group of people will be discriminated by 5%. For instance, I'm Italian. Are you telling me that in the States I won't find 5% (or even 12% or more) of people that think I'm dishonest, mafioso, lazy, etc..?
I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation.
You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is.
Nowhere in my comment do I refer to any "evial patriarchy", although I do consider such an issue grave. If around half of the working population is discriminated against by 5% that would be a pretty huge issue overall. That other instances of discrimination exist, for example discrimination against people of Italian descent does not change that.
I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense.
> I believe you are willfully misconstruing my position instead of trying to engage in the most charitable interpretation.
I don't believe so.
> You original comment which has now been flagged suggested that 0 economists took the issue of the gender gap serious. By "denialism" I meant to refer to your position of denying that this is an issue at all. That it is an issue treated by serious economists is a fact. You have since reneged from that denial, which I consider a step forward. What you are now questioning is how big an issue it is.
I have no idea why it was flagged because it was a normal comment, and not even a very controversial position to hold. You're saying "has now been flagged" like I called for all women to be killed while swearing and offending people (perhaps to discredit me/my opinions?).
As for changing my mind (or even "reneging from that denial"), I think you're overestimating yourself: you didn't present anything that made me change my mind. 10% of unaccounted "discrimination" would be proof that this is an issue? Even if it was (which we don't know), like I said you can find 10% of people that will discriminate against anything: Italians, women, attractive vs. unattractive people, blacks, blond people, fat people, skinny people.
This whole thing is overblown. There are certain people that want to see injustice everywhere and will use the 10% pay gap that is unaccounted for to prove that there is a problem of women being oppressed, while either there is no problem, or it's so little to be negligible and most importantly similar to other biases.
> I am afraid you are also incorrect in picking out the end of the Wikipedia section I linked to. As this section I linked to points out, the Uber setting is very special because the pay is set via the Uber company without hiring the drivers in the usual sense.
I think it's a perfect example. Even taking away human bias--so, removing the hiring process, men and women perform differently. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare men and women like they're exactly the same, or why when you do you'll get a 10% discrepancy.
You know what we could agree on? That we are human and will naturally be 10% biased towards anything. Not only women, but all groups of people I mentioned and more. Sometimes it's women, sometimes it's Italians, sometimes it's attractive vs. unattractive people. This obsession with equality of outcome creates a lot more problems than that 10%, considering that while you may lose 10% on your workplace because of bias/opinion X, you might gain 10% in other aspects of your life and at the end it just averages out. In first-world and second-world western countries people have equality of opportunity, which is what really counts.
EDIT: HN doesn't allow me to reply to your comment below (thread too deep), but it's not worth it anyway.
Here is a case in which I think you do not engage in the most charitable interpretation: 'You're saying "has now been flagged" like I called for all women to be killed'
A more charitable interpretation would have been that I wanted to make clear that what I responded to can no longer be seen. I ask you to please interpret me as charitably as possible. I will try to do the same.
You said 0 economists study the issue. I showed you that multiple economists study it. You now also assert that I didn't make you change your mind. Do you still hold that 0 economists study the issue? If you do not, you have changed your mind. If you do still hold that opinion, then I am not sure how to proceed as that would indicate that you are impervious to argumentation.
You are using the number of 10% in two ways:
1.) About 10% of the gender pay gap are unaccounted for and therefore likely to be the result of direct discrimination.
2.) Every group is discriminated against by other people by around 10% of the population.
But these are very different issues. If every group was discriminated against by 10% of the population, the resulting pay differences would (more or less) even out. The does not, which suggests that this a widespread and systematic phenomenon. For some people, although perhaps not you and I grant that it would need to be debated, this might make the problem appear more severe.
Much of your posts just questions the importance of the issue. That is a normative question, which I consider separate from the issue whether the gender pay gap can be partially traced back to discrimination. Here is what I hold in regard to that normative question: I do not want to tell other people that they should not care about the discrimination they experience when I am on the end that profits or at least does not suffer it. It is up to people subjected to this treatment to decide how big of an issue they want to make out of it. I suggest it is a good normative heuristic that one should be wary to question the severity of the problem if one is on the side who is not affected by it. If you are fine discounting discrimination you experience, then that is all well but I would suggest you should not extend that to other people so easily.
(I edited this post to more adequately reflect the position of the previous poster.)
