Lawsuit: Female doctors say male co-worker paid more

[WarriorInNYC]

What opportunities are being denied today?  The common line typically is fewer women in technology, engineering, etc.  Well, that's because there are so few graduates.  Companies are looking to cut costs all the time. If it was more beneficial to hire lower income workers to get the job done, companies would only hire women based on the accusations.  Companies would save enormous amounts of money.

There's a podcast I listen to and there was an episode that partly explains why there are fewer women in technology and computer engineering.  (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding)

Basically, it started as a male-dominated field as when personal computers started appearing in homes, in the late 80's and early 90's, they were heavily marketed towards boys as toys.  And that led to boys tinkering around with them for years and eventually going into the field at universities.  Ultimately, this help build the narrative that technology and computer engineering were "for men" and its kind of snowballed from there, though I do think we've made quite some progress (not enough) since then.

Really great podcast IMO, and this episode I found quite interesting.

[GGGG]

Why? Are there women who are being denied the opportunity to study engineering  because of their gender?

My guess is that the graduation rate for female STEM students is as high or higher than male students. The real sexism doesn't start until after they actually start working.

I think there is both explicit sexism and societal biases has that are pushing females out of the STEM fields.

https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem

[PBRme]

I think there is both explicit sexism and societal biases has that are pushing females out of the STEM fields.

https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem

The title is slightly misleading.  All of the quoted information is about the challenges of women already in STEM fields and I didn't read anything where they left to pursue other fields.

Not saying there is not a problem, 

[GGGG]

The title is slightly misleading.  All of the quoted information is about the challenges of women already in STEM fields and I didn't read anything where they left to pursue other fields.

Not saying there is not a problem, 

I agree. 

[B. McBannerson]

I can only go on personal experiences and the literature.  The pay gap is a myth and has been shown by even the NY Times and so many others, mostly academia. When one normalizes for the types of jobs men and women do, the hours worked, the degrees \ experience.  For the most part, women' aren't climbing electrical poles, women aren't working construction, women aren't loggers, etc.  94% of job related fatalities happen to males and they get compensated for those types of jobs.  Even in the medical industry, fewer women tend to go on to specializations then their male counterparts. Is this because of opportunity?  I have a colleague married to a MD, she hasn't practiced in 12 years. Decided to stay home and raise the kids.  This is a woman with a MD.  He makes good money, that was a life choice they made together, with no regrets.

From a personal perspective, I work for a woman and on my team are 13 women and one man.  All of them make over 6 figures.  They are granted every opportunity that anyone else is.  In some cases, because our company is hypersensitive about diversity, some of these women have an advantage for promotions, awards and other areas of acknowledgement than their male counterparts.  It's a great time to be a woman in corporate America right now.  Minority women in corporate America can write their own ticket.  Companies are falling over themselves to show what they are doing in terms or promotions, high level positions.  The challenges remain in some of the tech areas where the qualified list of candidates is low due to low volume of graduates.

[GGGG]

I can only go on personal experiences and the literature.  The pay gap is a myth and has been shown by even the NY Times and so many others, mostly academia. When one normalizes for the types of jobs men and women do, the hours worked, the degrees \ experience.  For the most part, women' aren't climbing electrical poles, women aren't working construction, women aren't loggers, etc.  94% of job related fatalities happen to males and they get compensated for those types of jobs.  Even in the medical industry, fewer women tend to go on to specializations then their male counterparts. Is this because of opportunity?  I have a colleague married to a MD, she hasn't practiced in 12 years. Decided to stay home and raise the kids.  This is a woman with a MD.  He makes good money, that was a life choice they made together, with no regrets.

From a personal perspective, I work for a woman and on my team are 13 women and one man.  All of them make over 6 figures.  They are granted every opportunity that anyone else is.  In some cases, because our company is hypersensitive about diversity, some of these women have an advantage for promotions, awards and other areas of acknowledgement than their male counterparts.  It's a great time to be a woman in corporate America right now.  Minority women in corporate America can write their own ticket.  Companies are falling over themselves to show what they are doing in terms or promotions, high level positions.  The challenges remain in some of the tech areas where the qualified list of candidates is low due to low volume of graduates.

"I don't care what the stats say.  I will go by my personal experience!  And then I will make a sweeping statement based on that statement."

Typical Chicos...

[tower912]

Unless he actually has statistics.    Then the statistics are paramount and anyone else's opinion irrelevant. 

[forgetful]

"I don't care what the stats say.  I will go by my personal experience!  And then I will make a sweeping statement based on that statement."

Typical Chicos...

Except that is not what he said.  He said that he is going by both personal experience and literature (aka stats).  His point is that if you normalize for specific jobs that the pay gap is a myth.  Statistics do back this up and as he notes numerous academic studies and publications from even very liberal organizations confirm that if you correct for type of job, hours worked etc, there is no pay gap...indeed in many fields beginning professional woman get a pay advantage. 

That is not saying that pay gaps don't exist, or that women are not discriminated against, and most certainly that there isn't an income disparity in people that have been working for 20+ years (that have built in institutional and historical pay/opportunity disadvantages). 

It is saying that if you do statistics and correct for things like "type of job" and "hours worked" and "experience level" that the reported "pay gaps" vanish, and that the other reports do not correct for important variables. 

Does discrimination in the workplace still exist.  Yes, most certainly.  I know department chairs (who are women) that will not hire another woman, because they may "run off and have kids instead of working" (their words).  And on average women make less, because the senior higher paying positions are dominated by people who got those jobs 20+ years ago when discrimination was incredibly rampant and severe.  If you look at people just starting, women earn 10-20% more than their male counterparts at the same level of experience and qualifications (in my field). 

If you ran statistics across that entire spectrum, it would report something that looks like women earning 78 cents on the dollar compared to men.  If you looked at it at the same experience level, it is flat across the board.  If you look at it for the younger generation (starting in the last 10ish years) the women make 1.10-1.20 for every dollar a man makes in my field.  How you run the statistics is important.  And again, this is in my field. 

If you go to other fields, the maximum like-for-like pay gaps do not exceed 5-6% (occurs in the IT industry), and even those studies admit much of this is due to large pay gaps at the most senior positions. 

Chico's here is presenting the results of most studies that correct for many aspects of the disparities and look at like-for-like.  Now, whether the adjustments are correctly done or not is not my area and I cannot judge it. 

I'm not one to be a big defender of Chico's.  But his statements here are based on statistics.  The question is what method of doing these statistics is most accurate.  I don't know, and am not qualified to make such a decision, but dismissing this as typical Chico's is also invalid.

[rocket surgeon]

"I don't care what the stats say.  I will go by my personal experience!  And then I will make a sweeping statement based on that statement."

Typical Chicos...

Classic!  If this message were to have come from, say, pakuni(no offense) or one of your other 2 friends here, you would have slobbered all over it and maybe even added something constructive to it.  I sense a little pent up wasted energy here.  Jogging, perhaps yoga may help

[GGGG]

Except that is not what he said.  He said that he is going by both personal experience and literature (aka stats).  His point is that if you normalize for specific jobs that the pay gap is a myth.  Statistics do back this up and as he notes numerous academic studies and publications from even very liberal organizations confirm that if you correct for type of job, hours worked etc, there is no pay gap...indeed in many fields beginning professional woman get a pay advantage. 

That is not saying that pay gaps don't exist, or that women are not discriminated against, and most certainly that there isn't an income disparity in people that have been working for 20+ years (that have built in institutional and historical pay/opportunity disadvantages). 

It is saying that if you do statistics and correct for things like "type of job" and "hours worked" and "experience level" that the reported "pay gaps" vanish, and that the other reports do not correct for important variables. 

Does discrimination in the workplace still exist.  Yes, most certainly.  I know department chairs (who are women) that will not hire another woman, because they may "run off and have kids instead of working" (their words).  And on average women make less, because the senior higher paying positions are dominated by people who got those jobs 20+ years ago when discrimination was incredibly rampant and severe.  If you look at people just starting, women earn 10-20% more than their male counterparts at the same level of experience and qualifications (in my field). 

If you ran statistics across that entire spectrum, it would report something that looks like women earning 78 cents on the dollar compared to men.  If you looked at it at the same experience level, it is flat across the board.  If you look at it for the younger generation (starting in the last 10ish years) the women make 1.10-1.20 for every dollar a man makes in my field.  How you run the statistics is important.  And again, this is in my field. 

If you go to other fields, the maximum like-for-like pay gaps do not exceed 5-6% (occurs in the IT industry), and even those studies admit much of this is due to large pay gaps at the most senior positions. 

Chico's here is presenting the results of most studies that correct for many aspects of the disparities and look at like-for-like.  Now, whether the adjustments are correctly done or not is not my area and I cannot judge it. 

I'm not one to be a big defender of Chico's.  But his statements here are based on statistics.  The question is what method of doing these statistics is most accurate.  I don't know, and am not qualified to make such a decision, but dismissing this as typical Chico's is also invalid.

I wasn't disputing this point. I do appreciate this however.

[GGGG]

Classic!  If this message were to have come from, say, pakuni(no offense) or one of your other 2 friends here, you would have slobbered all over it and maybe even added something constructive to it.  I sense a little pent up wasted energy here.  Jogging, perhaps yoga may help

Says the guy who insisted that Chicos moved on from Scoop.

[rocket surgeon]

Says the guy who insisted that Chicos moved on from Scoop.

Context my man, context...oh, forget the yoga-bad visual of guys in those special pants; couch time and maybe some pharmaceuticals first.

[GGGG]

Context my man, context...

IOW, you fell for it.

[rocket surgeon]

IOW, you fell for it.

Fell for what?  Hang on, I gotta look up this IOW stuff

[Benny B]

I wasn't disputing this point. I do appreciate this however.