Gender Pay Gap

[crabber]

Please explain to me the persistence of this gender pay gap statistic in news reports. I've been curious about this pay gap issue for a few years because it always seems to be framed poorly, ie "Women make $.77 for every dollar a man makes." This is cited as evidence that there is "a problem" and the implication seems to be that the ratio should be 1.00

Obviously, people with a statistical background should recognize the folly of this argument immediately. Presumably, the "problem" that we are trying to fix is "women do not receive equal pay for equal work". It seems that teh feminists and reporters do not use statistics that attempt to adjust for occupation, work experience, etc. I read about a study a couple of years back that estimated the true gender "pay gap" at about $.08.

Abuse of statistics is persistent everywhere, but this particularly annoys me and seems counter-productive to the goals of women's rights advocates. To get the ratio to 1.0, we would have to have identical occupational distributions by gender, and men and women would have to both stay home to raise the kids in equal proportions. These are a function of collective individual decisions and should not be cited as evidence of inequality (unless the individuals are not free to make their own decisions).

Feminists are not good at math (and it's fun to tell them that!)

[The Drunken Actuary]

:aypi:

[Travis]

good statistics don't sell papers

[Dr. John Zoidberg]

63.8% of people know that.

[silverfox]

I feel like I saw a survey in Business Insurance saying that 70% of people believe gender bias exists in their workplace. If anything, I feel like the hiring process favors the fairer sex. Maybe that's why people are saying gender bias exists.

[Enough Exams Already]

Please explain to me the persistence of this gender pay gap statistic in news reports. I've been curious about this pay gap issue for a few years because it always seems to be framed poorly, ie "Women make $.77 for every dollar a man makes." This is cited as evidence that there is "a problem" and the implication seems to be that the ratio should be 1.00

Obviously, people with a statistical background should recognize the folly of this argument immediately. Presumably, the "problem" that we are trying to fix is "women do not receive equal pay for equal work". It seems that teh feminists and reporters do not use statistics that attempt to adjust for occupation, work experience, etc. I read about a study a couple of years back that estimated the true gender "pay gap" at about $.08.

Abuse of statistics is persistent everywhere, but this particularly annoys me and seems counter-productive to the goals of women's rights advocates. To get the ratio to 1.0, we would have to have identical occupational distributions by gender, and men and women would have to both stay home to raise the kids in equal proportions. These are a function of collective individual decisions and should not be cited as evidence of inequality (unless the individuals are not free to make their own decisions).

Feminists are not good at math (and it's fun to tell them that!)

I can explain it in one word: truthiness.

It feels true to the people who believe it, just like the "half of all marriages end in divorce" pseudo-fact. It paints a picture someone wants to believe is true for emotional reasons. And it's more convenient that actually digging into how the factoid was determined, or investigating whether Simpson's paradox is rearing its ugly head.

[Werewolf]

The people reporting this fact have a political agenda. It's that simple.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

"There are lies, damned lies, and THE MISUSE OF statistics."
Mark Twain, Adulterated for truthiness.

[Twitches]

I can explain it in one word: truthiness.

It feels true to the people who believe it, just like the "half of all marriages end in divorce" pseudo-fact. It paints a picture someone wants to believe is true for emotional reasons. And it's more convenient that actually digging into how the factoid was determined, or investigating whether Simpson's paradox is rearing its ugly head.

The divorce rate, from what I've read, is not that far off from the statistic.

[crabber]

The divorce rate, from what I've read, is not that far off from the statistic.

I thought the issue was that
divorce rate = #divorces/#marriages <> cumulative survival probability of marriage as t--->infinity

[Entropy]

Figures never lie, but liars figure.

[Enough Exams Already]

The divorce rate, from what I've read, is not that far off from the statistic.

That's because lots of people keep re-quoting the factoid without having read the study behind it.

I thought the issue was that
divorce rate = #divorces/#marriages <> cumulative survival probability of marriage as t--->infinity

The problem is that the study didn't conclude that 50% of all marriages fail.

It was a study of two predictor variables: the person's age at marriage, and whether the person had a college degree. The researchers found that for someone 26 or under who didn't have a degree, the chance of getting divorced within 20 years was 49%. But, if the person was 26 or under and had a college degree, the chance of divorce over that same time frame was only 35%. And a person 27 or older at marriage who had a college degree had only a 19% chance of getting divorced within 20 years. No divorce rate was tracked for those 27 and older at marriage who didn't have a college degree.

The 50% factoid gets quoted over and over because it sound dire, and both liberal and conservative voices in the culture wars use it to justify their own agendas. But it's at best a half-truth.

[soyleche]

the true gender "pay gap" at about $.08.
Women only make $0.08 for every $1.00 a man makes? That's atrocious!

[MAX.]

Women only make $0.08 for every $1.00 a man makes? That's atrocious!

That's it. I'm making the guy in the office next to mine pay for lunch next time.

[Travis]

That's because lots of people keep re-quoting the factoid without having read the study behind it.



The problem is that the study didn't conclude that 50% of all marriages fail.

It was a study of two predictor variables: the person's age at marriage, and whether the person had a college degree. The researchers found that for someone 26 or under who didn't have a degree, the chance of getting divorced within 20 years was 49%. But, if the person was 26 or under and had a college degree, the chance of divorce over that same time frame was only 35%. And a person 27 or older at marriage who had a college degree had only a 19% chance of getting divorced within 20 years. No divorce rate was tracked for those 27 and older at marriage who didn't have a college degree.

The 50% factoid gets quoted over and over because it sound dire, and both liberal and conservative voices in the culture wars use it to justify their own agendas. But it's at best a half-truth.

[citation needed] Not that I don't believe you, I'd just like a link to the study

[ldancer911]

That's it. I'm making the guy in the office next to mine pay for lunch next time.

You are going to give him sex though right? That is how it works.

[QMO]

...seems counter-productive to the goals of women's rights advocates...That's because you're not cynical enough.

The goal of many women's right activists is the same as the goal of many race equality activists, increased power/attention for the activist.

Kind of like No Child Left Behind. The real goal was not to help kids get better education, but to have government take over a little more of the parents' job. This directly gives politicians (and those behind them) more power, while simultaneously weakening the family which makes us more reliant on government (i.e. indirectly giving politicians more power).

/cynic

[Non-Actuary]

Kind of like No Child Left Behind. The real goal was not to help kids get better education, but to have government take over a little more of the parents' job. This directly gives politicians (and those behind them) more power, while simultaneously weakening the family which makes us more reliant on government (i.e. indirectly giving politicians more power).



Fail. No Child Left Behind was a GW Bush program that created extra reporting requirements from schools while not providing any increased funding or oversight, effectively taxing school systems without any benefit. It has nothing to do with "family weakening", whatever the h**l that is.

[ElDucky]

Mr. President, we must not allow a gender pay gap!

[JUICE]

I am in favor of a Gender Pay Cap.

[Non-Actuary]

As a follow up, doesn't it drive you crazy when you hear women's professional golfer, tennis player, etc. complain about their prize money compared to the men's? Women professional golfers, tennis players, etc have the exact same earning opportunities as their male counterparts - they just need to play with the men.

[JUICE]

As a follow up, doesn't it drive you crazy when you hear women's professional golfer, tennis player, etc. complain about their prize money compared to the men's? Women professional golfers, tennis players, etc have the exact same earning opportunities as their male counterparts - they just need to play with the men.

Men are afraid of getting beat by women so they don't let them join their sports clubs. Michelle Jordan - the greatest basketball player of all-time that was never given a chance :shake2:

[Keef]

Mr. President, we must not allow a gender pay gap!

RN

[Dismal Science]

Isn't it appropriate that the gender pay gap should exist? I mean, don't men generally have to pay for the dates?

[ElDucky]

Isn't it appropriate that the gender pay gap should exist? I mean, don't men generally have to pay for the dates?

and the ring.

[ShakeNBakes]

and the sex with hookers after the wedding.

[DeepPurple]

Fail. No Child Left Behind was a GW Bush program that created extra reporting requirements from schools while not providing any increased funding or oversight, effectively taxing school systems without any benefit. It has nothing to do with "family weakening", whatever the h**l that is.

You are doosh-bag.


NCLB was a bipartisan accomplishment that added 24 billion dollars a year into the budgets of American schools. You have pre-decided that since it was signed into law by George Bush, then it must be bad. You are ignoring that the bill was written by Ted Kennedy, one of the most liberal politicians of the time. You also should recall that it received OVERWHELMING support from both sides of the aisle in congress: 384 to 45 in favor in the House, 91 to 8 in favor in the senate.

Having measurable goals is a REASONABLE requirement for a program handing out such large amounts of money.

You people on the far left and far right just sound like idiots when you bash ideas, programs, and accomplishments just because the came from "the other party." I wish the Republicans and Democrats could sit down and treat each other like teammates on team USA with different talents and approaches to problem solving. Instead, they treat each other like opponents (at best) and enemies (at worst).


If you want to replace NCLB with a better program, then fine, put together a better program for the 2010's.

[ElDucky]

and the sex with hookers after the wedding.

after?

[Heathen]

Wait, for every $1.00 a man makes, women only get $0.77?

That only leaves $0.23 for the man. That's not fair!

[Descalzo]

You are doosh-bag.


NCLB was a bipartisan accomplishment that added 24 billion dollars a year into the budgets of American schools. You have pre-decided that since it was signed into law by George Bush, then it must be bad. You are ignoring that the bill was written by Ted Kennedy, one of the most liberal politicians of the time. You also should recall that it received OVERWHELMING support from both sides of the aisle in congress: 384 to 45 in favor in the House, 91 to 8 in favor in the senate.

Having measurable goals is a REASONABLE requirement for a program handing out such large amounts of money.

You people on the far left and far right just sound like idiots when you bash ideas, programs, and accomplishments just because the came from "the other party." I wish the Republicans and Democrats could sit down and treat each other like teammates on team USA with different talents and approaches to problem solving. Instead, they treat each other like opponents (at best) and enemies (at worst).


If you want to replace NCLB with a better program, then fine, put together a better program for the 2010's.

I think NCLB should be replaced with whatever it was that preceded it. Or less. The actual standards are laughable. The stated goal is unattainable.

NCLB really did vastly increase federal control over state education. The $24 billion that have apparently been going to the schools is money flushed down the toilet if it isn't tied to improved student achievement.

[campbell]

http://meep.livejournal.com/1702724.html


Yet again, they're just not that into you:
Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.
There are plenty of careers that women (and men) in general as a group tend to stay out of, that few complain about. Few female garbage collectors, but people are okay with that. I say it's okay if women, percentage-wise, prefer being teachers to being engineers. Perhaps it's not okay that education is so dominated by women, though -- half the students are boys at lower grades, and children need role models far more than adults do.



Not sure why it's so startling.

[campbell]

http://meep.livejournal.com/1430417.html

This one is long, so I'll spoiler it.

Waaaaah, Mars needs chicks

Desegregation Stalled: The Changing Gender Composition of College Majors, 1971-2002. The abstract:
Gender segregation in baccalaureate degree fields declined rapidly in the first half of the period from 1971 to 2002; at the same time, women's representation among baccalaureate degree recipients increased most rapidly relative to men's. The desegregation of the early period resulted mainly from women's increased entry into business-related fields and declining proportions of women majoring in traditional fields such as education and English. Men did not contribute to integration by moving toward fields numerically dominated by women. Fixed-effects regression models suggest that feminization of fields discourages later cohorts of men from entering them, as predicted by the devaluation perspective. The stalling of desegregation came from a combination of men's disinclination to enter fields that are "too" filled with women, and the slowdown in women making less traditional choices.
Let's consider common sense -- the rebalancing comes because women were pretty much in two areas in college initially: nursing and teaching. If you were a woman good at math (and interested in it), you'd be told to be a high school math teacher. I had some good female math teachers from my Ma's generation because that was seen as the appropriate venue for an intellectual woman good with numbers. As attitudes changed and workplaces opened up, women had more choices and took them. The ones they were interested in, that is. So they rushed to where they were interested, which were huge ranges of fields. I will grant that men pretty much had a social barrier into entering elementary education and nursing (I had plenty of older male high school teachers, but most of them had degrees in the subject they were teaching.... isn't that interesting.) But considering the party line is that of patriarchy, if the men really wanted to be in these professions, women could have been barred from them as well. The fields that were feminized then were feminized because very few men were interested in them. Of course all the rebalancing would be due to the movement of women - the men already had as free a range as they desired.

Which brings us to the graphs shown. Interestingly, it seems that business, marketing, and accounting are about as attractive to female college students as male. Considering that women make up about 60% of the undergrad population, this actually means these fields have "feminized" in the sense that there are more women in these majors than men, in absolute numbers.

But one finds that certain fields are not gender neutral. Let's see which these are favored by men compared to women: physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. Also on a different graph: computer science and economics. (Question: where's the math majors? There are far more majoring in math than physics or chemistry...so why isn't it represented? Is the pattern not one that would go with their neat regression? Seriously, I'm not trusting the number-crunching when some huge majors are missing.) Favored by women: education, nursing, psychology, sociology. Does one see a pattern? Anyone?

Could it be that certain fields deal with "stuff" and "things" and other fields center around people? That's what it looks like to me.

What about those "balanced" majors? They all revolve around business -- they're very practical majors (unlike physics, which is very interesting but translates very little into a practical career outside academia). So when it comes to the bottom line - wanting a major that is directly related to corporate jobs - women seem to be similar to the men. But then, nursing and education as majors are also very vocational: they feed into very specific careers, careers involving taking care of people. And sorry, more women prefer taking care of people, particularly really small people (aka children), than do men. Just as you're going to see more men interested in jobs that might involve hurting/killing other people in order to protect the public (cop, soldier, bouncer). These are the result of personal preferences, coupled with ability...it just so happens that preferences aren't distributed the same amongst men and women. But why should they be? Height isn't distributed equally. Muscular strength isn't distributed equally. Ability to give birth is most definitely not distributed equally (dammit). Why should career or major preferences be distributed equally?

Perhaps "desegregation has stalled" because the populations are now in equilibrium, where each individual is going with their actual major preference, and where such preferences aren't equally distributed amongst groups. Is there any outcry that there aren't more men in women's studies? Why the gender segregation?! We must kick out some of the faculty and students and forcibly draft men to take their place. Then justice shall be achieved!

(As an aside, do not use me, a female physics/math major, with stay-at-home husband and three kids, to try to prove any kind of point. I am a weirdo. Stu is a weirdo. I come from a long line of weirdos, and Stu can speak for his own family. We are sitting so far out on a tail somewhere, we can't even see the distribution. Anyone thinking that a large population can be characterized by its outliers deserves ridicule.)

I got really pissed when I found that by the time feminism got to me, it was no longer about making sure individuals got a chance to pursue their own potential, but about making the numbers even in very particular endeavors. You know, fight for the woman garbage hauler who is getting unduly harassed, or the female firefighters who can pull their weight but must deal with misogyny -- but don't undermine these individuals by demanding quotas and lowering standards so that the quota can be met. In the same way I'm against unions (one of the many reasons being that weirdos like me always get screwed in a union - can't escape that self-interest), I am extremely offended when substandard women are shoved into positions because it's good PR.

Well, screw that. This weirdo can always join a different game if she wishes. Which I've done more than once.

[campbell]

And I've got plenty more where those came from.

http://meep.livejournal.com/1838810.html

[campbell]

Another long one, and it's a serious letter to the editor of the WSJ that didn't get printed (as opposed to my smartass ones, which seem to always get printed):

http://meep.livejournal.com/1488035.html


The recent article on Walmart's appeal as the the class action status of the sex discrimination suit puts me in mind of a pervasive problem with using statistics to "prove" discrimination on various bases.

The issue is called Simpson's Paradox (see Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox). It is entirely possible that in every single Walmart store women do better than men with regards to promotions, salaries, etc. but on a companywide basis they do worse. This may seem illogical, but this crops up all the time when there isn't a uniform distribution of various groups amongst the individual stores.

A famous example of this was a study of Berkeley grad school admissions in the 70s. It seemed that men were far more likely to be admitted to grad school than women. Clear sexual discrimination, right? Sorry, no. You see, admissions to grad school are decided on a department-by-department basis. So if there were sex bias, you'd have to see which departments were the culprits. It turned out that in every department, women had a higher admissions rate than men. What had happened is that, in general, women tended to apply to departments that had the highest rejection rates and men tended to apply to departments that had the lowest rejection rates.

According to the article "Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions: Data from Berkeley" (Science 7 February 1975: Vol. 187. no. 4175, pp. 398 - 404 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/187/4175/398 ), "The bias in the aggregated data stems not from any pattern of discrimination on the part of admissions committees, which seem quite fair on the whole, but apparently from prior screening at earlier levels of the educational system. Women are shunted by their socialization and education toward fields of graduate study that are generally more crowded, less productive of completed degrees, and less well funded, and that frequently offer poorer professional employment prospects."

I don't quite agree with their own bias here, because they're also not taking into consideration that one of the largest culprits in this study, education, is oversubscribed because most of the people going for graduate studies here are public school teachers and administrators for whom promotions and raises are contingent on higher degrees (no matter how irrelevant to their own job performance), even back in the 70s. And though it's probably still doctrine in the ivory tower that women are vastly "overrepresented" in education, out in the real world people recognize that women are more inclined to working with small children than are men, and that many mothers like the convenience of the teaching profession.

It is more than possible that a similar dynamic is going on at Walmart. I doubt that their wages are the same across the country, as most retail employees are going to be drawn from the local population (is someone going to relocate to be a store manager? Perhaps, but doubtful on the salaries they make), so the wages are going to be very dependent on the local wage market. Wages in rural Missouri are likely to be lower than wages in suburban Chicago, for instance. It could be that stores where retail wages are lower find far more women as employees, and perhaps these areas also have fewer promotion opportunities. It could be that men are more likely to work at Walmart only for the higher wage stores,where due to volume, there are more managers.

I agree with Walmart that as promotion and wage decisions are madelocally, the proper comparison should be on a local basis, so as to prevent the kind of confounding result one gets from Simpson's paradox. I hope whoever Walmart brought in as an expert witness did explain the disparity between the plaintiff's evidence of a national disparity and the store-by-store evidence. This is not to say that sex discrimination is going on in none of the Walmart stores (and it could even be that in some stores, women are preferred over men), but that national statistics mean nothing without looking at a store-by-store account.

Mary Pat Campbell
Sr. Actuarial Associate
Kew Garden Hills, NY

[crabber]

Thanks, MPC. I didn't realize you had blogged about this so extensively.

Of course, I'm not old enough to have been around when feminists were trying to close a wide equality gap. So, the few that I've met have tended to be extreme, which has resulted in my negative perception of feminists, and I tend to dismiss issues that have a feminist flavor. To make matters worse, I recently worked with a middle-aged products manager who was always ranting about the boys' club and discrimination here at the insurance company (she may have had a point, but it seemed like she was over-generalizing). Interestingly, she is a lawyer by trade.

[limabeanactuary]

Just because I wasn't an adult when it was happening doesn't mean I'm not aware of it.

For example, I have older people I can talk to who tell me their experiences.

And there are these things called books and documentaries.

[Twitches]

And there are these things called books .

That's like a paper version of my Kindle, right?

[Klaymen]

I would agree that a lot of one gender's pay goes to the GAP.

[crabber]

Just because I wasn't an adult when it was happening doesn't mean I'm not aware of it.

For example, I have older people I can talk to who tell me their experiences.

And there are these things called books and documentaries.

It's not the history I'm interested in, it's the current state of women's rights *shudders*.
See, I can't even use that term because it means different things to different people. Like, if I'm for gender pay equality but against abortion, am I for or against "women's rights"? That's another reason I don't like talking about the feminist movement.

[Twitches]

It's not the history I'm interested in, it's the current state of women's rights *shudders*.
See, I can't even use that term because it means different things to different people. Like, if I'm for gender pay equality but against abortion, am I for or against "women's rights"? That's another reason I don't like talking about the feminist movement.

If you're talking to a zealous feminist, you would be against women's rights, as disagreeing with any part of their agenda makes you the enemy. To a more reasonable person, you're "for gender pay equality but against abortion." Lumping everything together into one category is idiotic for everyone: it takes away from the individual issues and amalgamates them into at best a meaningless phrase and at worst, as you've shown, an incredibly ambiguous term that produces ambivalence or, possibly, disdain.

[crabber]

For example, I have older people I can talk to who tell me their experiences.


Yes, why just the other day, I was talking to a co-worker in his early 60's. He says he remembers being called an a-hole for holding the door for women. Sounds like the feminists back in the day were real gems, too.

[FourKicks]

If you're talking to a zealous feminist, you would be against women's rights, as disagreeing with any part of their agenda makes you the enemy. To a more reasonable person, you're "for gender pay equality but against abortion." Lumping everything together into one category is idiotic for everyone: it takes away from the individual issues and amalgamates them into at best a meaningless phrase and at worst, as you've shown, an incredibly ambiguous term that produces ambivalence or, possibly, disdain.

i once asked my staunch feminist friend if she would ever date anyone who was anti abortion. her response was, "no, because that person doesn't respect women, and i would never date someone who doesn't respect women." i pointed out that 1) a large percentage of women are anti abortion, do they not respect themselves? 2) however you feel about the abortion issue, the point of contention is what constitutes a human life, no?

none of it mattered. a pro-life person had no respect for woman. that's all there was to it.

[limabeanactuary]

This is going in a good direction.

[Twitches]

Another long one, and it's a serious letter to the editor of the WSJ that didn't get printed (as opposed to my smartass ones, which seem to always get printed):

http://meep.livejournal.com/1488035.html


The recent article on Walmart's appeal as the the class action status of the sex discrimination suit puts me in mind of a pervasive problem with using statistics to "prove" discrimination on various bases.

The issue is called Simpson's Paradox (see Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox). It is entirely possible that in every single Walmart store women do better than men with regards to promotions, salaries, etc. but on a companywide basis they do worse. This may seem illogical, but this crops up all the time when there isn't a uniform distribution of various groups amongst the individual stores.

A famous example of this was a study of Berkeley grad school admissions in the 70s. It seemed that men were far more likely to be admitted to grad school than women. Clear sexual discrimination, right? Sorry, no. You see, admissions to grad school are decided on a department-by-department basis. So if there were sex bias, you'd have to see which departments were the culprits. It turned out that in every department, women had a higher admissions rate than men. What had happened is that, in general, women tended to apply to departments that had the highest rejection rates and men tended to apply to departments that had the lowest rejection rates.

According to the article "Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions: Data from Berkeley" (Science 7 February 1975: Vol. 187. no. 4175, pp. 398 - 404 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/187/4175/398 ), "The bias in the aggregated data stems not from any pattern of discrimination on the part of admissions committees, which seem quite fair on the whole, but apparently from prior screening at earlier levels of the educational system. Women are shunted by their socialization and education toward fields of graduate study that are generally more crowded, less productive of completed degrees, and less well funded, and that frequently offer poorer professional employment prospects."

I don't quite agree with their own bias here, because they're also not taking into consideration that one of the largest culprits in this study, education, is oversubscribed because most of the people going for graduate studies here are public school teachers and administrators for whom promotions and raises are contingent on higher degrees (no matter how irrelevant to their own job performance), even back in the 70s. And though it's probably still doctrine in the ivory tower that women are vastly "overrepresented" in education, out in the real world people recognize that women are more inclined to working with small children than are men, and that many mothers like the convenience of the teaching profession.

It is more than possible that a similar dynamic is going on at Walmart. I doubt that their wages are the same across the country, as most retail employees are going to be drawn from the local population (is someone going to relocate to be a store manager? Perhaps, but doubtful on the salaries they make), so the wages are going to be very dependent on the local wage market. Wages in rural Missouri are likely to be lower than wages in suburban Chicago, for instance. It could be that stores where retail wages are lower find far more women as employees, and perhaps these areas also have fewer promotion opportunities. It could be that men are more likely to work at Walmart only for the higher wage stores,where due to volume, there are more managers.

I agree with Walmart that as promotion and wage decisions are madelocally, the proper comparison should be on a local basis, so as to prevent the kind of confounding result one gets from Simpson's paradox. I hope whoever Walmart brought in as an expert witness did explain the disparity between the plaintiff's evidence of a national disparity and the store-by-store evidence. This is not to say that sex discrimination is going on in none of the Walmart stores (and it could even be that in some stores, women are preferred over men), but that national statistics mean nothing without looking at a store-by-store account.

Mary Pat Campbell
Sr. Actuarial Associate
Kew Garden Hills, NY





This one was really interesting. Thanks.

[Duck-Billed Platitudes]

MELTDOWN! MELTDOWN! MELTDOWN!

:popcorn:

[silverfox]

Abort!

[crabber]

This is going in a good direction.

This isn't about abortion, this is about the kind of people who ruin a cause by muddying it with other causes, which was kind of my original point.

[crabber]

What are you people so worried about? How many abortion meltdowns have we actually had on this forum?

[silverfox]

I'd like to see Asian pay equity. For every dollar a white man makes, the dry cleaners only make $0.03. :popcorn:

[Paro]

I have had conversations with people who like to believe there is that gap for people in the same profession and experience. For pre-ASA actuaries the gap is probably close to nil. There is no way it is common to have a 30% gap in pay for students at the same level at the same company. If it was nicely split along gender lines it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. What about the story about how unmarried women in their twenties are outearning unmarried men in their twenties?

[JUICE]

I have had conversations with people who like to believe there is that gap for people in the same profession and experience. For pre-ASA actuaries the gap is probably close to nil. There is no way it is common to have a 30% gap in pay for students at the same level at the same company. If it was nicely split along gender lines it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. What about the story about how unmarried women in their twenties are outearning unmarried men in their twenties?

Shh!

You'll shatter their innocent sense of entitlement. Life should bestow upon women exactly what it bestows upon men. Of course, some things (eg penises) are conveniently left out. Also, a simplifying assumption that what life gives is caused entirely by outside forces is made. The actor, in this case the individual woman, can never be said to be at fault for anything that happens to her. Low salary? It couldn't possibly be her fault for not negotiating, it must be some grand external conspiracy at work. Life is too hard to take responsibility. Just shirk it onto someone else!

[MG]

i once asked my staunch feminist friend if she would ever date anyone who was anti abortion. her response was, "no, because that person doesn't respect women, and i would never date someone who doesn't respect women." i pointed out that 1) a large percentage of women are anti abortion, do they not respect themselves? 2) however you feel about the abortion issue, the point of contention is what constitutes a human life, no?

none of it mattered. a pro-life person had no respect for woman. that's all there was to it.

Well, since one example must clearly be representative of the whole group, let me offer up another.

I'm a "staunch feminist" and I am pro-choice. I also would have answered no, because (a) this is such a contentious and emotional issue that people feel strongly about that it seems bound to erupt in an argument (or arguments) or will be always boiling under the surface, and (b) if we're split on that, good chance we don't share worldviews on a bunch of other topics as well, so unlikely to be compatible. And G*d forbid an unplanned pregnancy happens....

I've never met someone who was anti-abortion but with whom I was politically/socially compatible on almost everything else. I have a number of friends who are politically opposite from me, but I think it's tougher to make that work with a long-term mate.

[MG]

It couldn't possibly be her fault for not negotiating, it must be some grand external conspiracy at work.

Problem is, negotiating is not always perceived the same way when done by a man as by a woman. So it's not an automatic fix.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html

Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".
....

Men tended to rule against women who negotiated but were less likely to penalize men; women tended to penalize both men and women who negotiated, and preferred applicants who did not ask for more.

[silverfox]

I would replace "less nice" with "of abitch". And who doesn't prefer an applicant that doesn't ask for more? I hope they didn't spend money researching whether people like the person more or less if they ask for more money.

[JUICE]

Or maybe women are just less skilled at negotiation than men. Would explain their apparent lack of ability to maintain relations and negotiate at the same time.


Men tended to rule against women who negotiated but were less likely to penalize men; women tended to penalize both men and women who negotiated, and preferred applicants who did not ask for more.

Again, it seems the problem is on the woman's side. Men maintain relationships with other men who negotiate, but not women. Women allow relationship to degrade when either men or women negotiate. Men negotiate more than women.

Sounds like women are afraid of / adverse to negotiation and not terribly skilled at it when they do. :shrug:

[MG]

Or maybe women are just less skilled at negotiation than men. Would explain their apparent lack of ability to maintain relations and negotiate at the same time.



Again, it seems the problem is on the woman's side. Men maintain relationships with other men who negotiate, but not women. Women allow relationship to degrade when either men or women negotiate. Men negotiate more than women.

Sounds like women are afraid of / adverse to negotiation and not terribly skilled at it when they do. :shrug:

I think the larger issue is that women are generally taught to follow the rules and stay inside the lines. Negotiating is asking to have the rules bent.

[JUICE]

Sounds like you're admitting that women tend to be less skilled at negotiation.

However, I think you are creating a "larger issue" to defer to. I don't agree that men are taught to bend the rules... which is the only way your assertion would have any relevance.

[limabeanactuary]

...and there are things to negotiate for other than money.

[silverfox]

Like sex

[ShakeNBakes]

and who does the dishes

[ShakeNBakes]

just kidding... that's women's work.

[crabber]

I heard the most amazing comment today by a woman who was on NPR's Here and Now. She was complaining how difficult it is for a stay-at-home mom to re-enter the workforce, and the lifetime income lost by being a stay-at-home mom being in the $1M range. Toward the end of the interview, they were discussing policies that should be pursued to rectify this imbalance. She said "there should be flexible, high-paying part time jobs available".
LOL

[FourKicks]

Well, since one example must clearly be representative of the whole group, let me offer up another.

if you could point out where i generalized to the entire group...

I'm a "staunch feminist" and I am pro-choice. I also would have answered no, because (a) this is such a contentious and emotional issue that people feel strongly about that it seems bound to erupt in an argument (or arguments) or will be always boiling under the surface, and (b) if we're split on that, good chance we don't share worldviews on a bunch of other topics as well, so unlikely to be compatible. And G*d forbid an unplanned pregnancy happens....

I've never met someone who was anti-abortion but with whom I was politically/socially compatible on almost everything else. I have a number of friends who are politically opposite from me, but I think it's tougher to make that work with a long-term mate.

i agree with everything above (i would, since i'm pro-choice). so, just to clarify: you don't believe that anti-abortion people 'don't respect women', correct?

as crabber has eluded to, i was more amazed by my friend's 'people-with-different-views-than-mine-don't-respect-women-and-there's-no-other-possible-explanation' attitude.

[Hawkeye16]

Definitely not true for people of equal experience, qualifications and personality in most professions. I feel women have a better chance of landing jobs due to being nicer to look at. If they have equal qualifications the man stands no chance.

[campbell]

Alternative explanation: they're lazy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1364690/Have-Dutch-women-secret-happiness.html


A recent report reveals that fewer than ten per cent of Dutch women work full-time, and they face one of the highest wage gaps in Europe. But the surprise is it’s not just mums with young families who work only two or three days a week, or older women who care for elderly relatives: it is child-free women in their 20s and 30s, too.

And, it seems, it makes them incredibly happy. A new book, Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed, explains that the reason they don’t is because the majority work part-time. They earn less and have less. Many live off their partner. But they don’t care. They want to relax, read a book, see their friends.

Studies show that Dutch women don’t want to spend more time at work: they refuse extended hours at their jobs, even if they don’t have children. And they are horrified by British women’s lack of free time.

I have travelled to Holland to find out why women here don’t want equality, professional fulfilment, independence and autonomy and power and . . . lovely things!

[Non-Actuary]

You are doosh-bag.


NCLB was a bipartisan accomplishment that added 24 billion dollars a year into the budgets of American schools. You have pre-decided that since it was signed into law by George Bush, then it must be bad. You are ignoring that the bill was written by Ted Kennedy, one of the most liberal politicians of the time. You also should recall that it received OVERWHELMING support from both sides of the aisle in congress: 384 to 45 in favor in the House, 91 to 8 in favor in the senate.

Having measurable goals is a REASONABLE requirement for a program handing out such large amounts of money.

You people on the far left and far right just sound like idiots when you bash ideas, programs, and accomplishments just because the came from "the other party." I wish the Republicans and Democrats could sit down and treat each other like teammates on team USA with different talents and approaches to problem solving. Instead, they treat each other like opponents (at best) and enemies (at worst).


If you want to replace NCLB with a better program, then fine, put together a better program for the 2010's.

Nice! I love it when the first response is name-calling, shows remarkable maturity and intelligence. And a great way to start team building!

Here's how the law has worked in my school district - we have spent $1.32 for each $1.00 received in order to comply with NCLB. Funding for TAG students has been reduced in order to increase funding for low performers in order to bring them up to "average". Admittedly, the overall average test scores have increased but virtually all of the increase is at the low end. The median test score has not statistically improved.

I don't have any idea what would make you think I'm "far right" (or "far left" for that matter) just because I disagree with the implementation of a program that was "bipartisan". There is no debate that this was a George Bush bill. Just because it was co-authored by congressmen from both parties doesn't make it any less so. Bush pushed it the whole way through. Now, you are partially correct - because the bill was signed by the Bush I am naturally disposed to subjecting it to closer scrutiny. I would do the same for any paper handed in by my lowest performing student.

[crabber]

Here's how the law has worked in my school district - we have spent $1.32 for each $1.00 received in order to comply with NCLB. Funding for TAG students has been reduced in order to increase funding for low performers in order to bring them up to "average". Admittedly, the overall average test scores have increased but virtually all of the increase is at the low end. The median test score has not statistically improved.


In other words, No Child Was Left Behind? (just playing devil's advocate here - if the stated goal is to improve the performance of low-performing students, then it sounds like it was a success)

[limabeanactuary]

Let's get this back on track

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2011/03/09/do-daughters-help-ease-gender-pay-gap/


But in an interesting new study, researchers have found that wage differences within a company decrease when something seemingly unrelated to the workplace occurs: when male CEOs have daughters.

Three economists studied the salaries of some 734,200 Danish workers at 6,230 firms, from 1995 through 2006. The data set also included information on CEOs, including the sexes and birth dates of their kids. (More details on the study can be found in this WSJ piece and on our fellow blog, Ideas Market.)

The researchers found that when male CEOs had daughters, the wage gap closed by 0.5 percentage points, on average, at their firms in the same calendar year, and if a CEO’s first born happened to be a daughter, the wage gap closed by nearly 3 percentage points. (Overall, Denmark has a gender wage gap of 21.5%, unadjusted for hours worked or rank.)

The birth of a son, however, had no effect on the wage gap. And the researchers found no changes in the relative wages of women and men when female CEOs had children.

....


The researchers also found that this “daughter effect” was strongest at firms with 50 or fewer employees, which could be because chiefs of smaller firms are typically more directly involved in individual pay decisions than CEOs of much larger firms.

[crabber]

Let's get this back on track

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2011/03/09/do-daughters-help-ease-gender-pay-gap/

Finally, proof that higher-paid women tend to be attracted to companies whose CEO has a daughter!

[Non-Actuary]

In other words, No Child Was Left Behind? (just playing devil's advocate here - if the stated goal is to improve the performance of low-performing students, then it sounds like it was a success)

I know what you're saying and I agree. I appreciate you making this point without prefacing it with me being d-bag. It did help the lower performing students do better on standardized tests. What I dispute is that a) the goal of any program should be just raising of the lowest common denominator b) the federal government is picking up the tab for the program and c) this is a good use of money. The current ratio of TAG spending versus special needs spending in our district is 1/40. We would be much better off without NCLB and using the extra $.32 on TAG programs which, in the long run, will be more beneficial in increasing the tax base of the community by a) attracting more young families who see value in a robust TAG program in the schools and b) by increasing the earning potential of our most talented students who, according to statistics, are likely to stay in our district.

[crabber]

I appreciate you making this point without prefacing it with me being d-bag.

Honestly, I didn't know you are a d-bag.

[Non-Actuary]

Honestly, I didn't know you are a d-bag.

Big one. Ask anybody.

[Heathen]

That's like a paper version of my Kindle, right?

nerd techie-nerd

[campbell]

Speaking of gender pay gap and that Walmart class action suit:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704823004576192920873207658.html?K EYWORDS=walmart

[campbell]

and a little older article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/business/07bizcourt.html

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal in the biggest employment discrimination case in the nation’s history, one claiming that Wal-Mart Stores had discriminated against hundreds of thousands of women in pay and promotion. The lawsuit seeks back pay that could amount to billions of dollars.

The question is not whether there was discrimination but rather whether the claims by the individual employees may be combined as a class action. The court’s decision on that issue will almost certainly affect all sorts of class-action suits, including ones asserting antitrust, securities and product liability.

....
Wal-Mart, which says its policies expressly bar discrimination and promote diversity, said the women in the potential class action — who worked in 3,400 stores in 170 job classifications — could not possibly have enough in common to make class-action treatment appropriate.
....
Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, writing for the majority, said the company’s policies and treatment of women were similar enough that a single lawsuit was both efficient and appropriate. He added that the six women who represent the class, four of whom have left Wal-Mart, had claims typical of the other plaintiffs.
....
That drew a sharp dissent from Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. “Maybe there’d be no difference between 500 employees and 500,000 employees if they all had similar jobs, worked at the same half-billion-square-foot store and were supervised by the same managers,” he wrote.

“But the half-million members of the majority’s approved class held a multitude of jobs, at different levels of Wal-Mart’s hierarchy, for variable lengths of time, in 3,400 stores, sprinkled across 50 states, with a kaleidoscope of supervisors (male and female).”

“They have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit,” Judge Kozinski concluded.

In a second dissent, Judge Sandra S. Ikuta said that allowing the case to go forward as a class action would prevent Wal-Mart from presenting tailored defenses to individual claims.


The question before the court right now is not the alleged discrimination, but whether this can be a class action suit the way it's constituted.

[campbell]

somewhat related:
http://www.marypat.org/stuff/nylife/000928.html


28 Sept 2000

Sexing your Meep
or
A little foray into Bayesian inference


So, earlier this week, noting the change to fall-like weather, I donned my
usual fall uniform: leather hat, leather jacket, leather vest, pirate
shirt, blue jeans, leather shoes. With hair tucked up under the hat, I
got my usual "Was that a woman or a man?" looks.

So, as a public service, I thought I'd talk about how to determine the
sex of a random person.

So you've got a Meep walking down the road -- how can you determine Meep's
gender? Flip Meep over and check between the legs. Ooops, that's how you
sex chickens. So if you're not going to be able to persuade me to remove
my clothing, give you a blood or tissue sample (I'm =pretty= sure I'm XX),
you're going to have to go with observable cues. That's where inference
comes in.

So, while I'm trying to look up demographic journals to give me actual
statistics, let me explain conditional probability to you.

We've all run into conditional probability, mainly because we don't live
in a fog of ignorance all the time ('we don't?'). How often have we asked
"What's the chance of my plane leaving on time given that there are major
thunderstorms over Chicago?", "What's the chance of me going to the gym
tomorrow morning, given that it's 3 am right now and I'm trying to finish
Harry Potter?", "The other guy has three of a kind showing, but I'm so
sure that my flush will beat his hand! However, what's the probability he
will beat me, also given that he keeps raising my bets?" (for more info on
that last question, see me. I'm thinking of writing a book: Meep's
Complete Poker Probability Bible.)

So there's this thing called "conditional probability": P(A | B) = "the
probability of A given B". For example, what's P(in a family of 2
children, both are boys | at least one is a boy)? And what's P(both boys
| oldest one is a boy)? Are those probabilities the same? (Answer at
bottom of file)

How does one calculate conditional probabilities? There are two ways: do
it directly. This is easy if the probability of each outcome is
equal. So, if I tell you that someone has a hand of all red cards, what's
the probability of them holding a heart flush? I can just count up the
number of heart flushes and divide by the number of hands made of hearts
and diamonds. Every hand is equally likely. No sweat.

But what if you can't calculate it directly? Here's a nice little
formula:

P(A | B) = P(A & B) / P(B)

Remember that. Tattoo it somewhere you can read it (remember - if you
tattoo it on your belly, put it upside-down. if on your ass, tattoo it
backwards).

So to get the conditional probability of A given B, calculate the
probability of both A & B happening, and divide by the probability of B
occurring.

This formula can be seen in another form as well (just minor algebra
manipulation):

P(A & B) = P(A | B) P(B)

So let's see what we can do with this info.

It seems that the appropriate statistics are unavailable online, so I'm
just going to pull them out of my ass. Which is appropriate, for my first
inference involves the ass.

Now, there Meep goes, just a walkin' down the street...
(singin doo wah ditty ditty dum ditty doo...)

What's the first thing you notice? Today, that is, when I'm wearing a
short vest and shirt tucked in. Yes! Meep's got an ass!

Now, one thing I've noticed throughout my life is that, if you're a woman,
chances are good that you have an ass. And if you're a man, chances are
less that you have an ass.

so let M = person is a man
W = person is a woman
A = person has an ass

fake stats:
P(A | W) = 70%
P(A | M) = 50%

we want to know: P(W | A) - probability a person is a woman, given that
they've got an ass.

Now let's see what we need:

P(W | A) = P(W & A) / P(A) = P(A | W) P(W) / P(A)

We already have P(A | W). What's P(W)? This is where =priors= come
in. You're trying to determine if someone's a man or a woman. You have
some prior probability in mind that they could be a particular
gender. Let's say this is at rush hour in Manhattan, Meep walking down
the street. Chances are about 50/50 that a person is one gender or
another. Now if you had been talking about walking around in the middle
of the day in Afghanistan, the priors would've been way different. As in,
the prior probability of being a woman would be 0, as any woman wandering
around would be immediately executed by the Taliban.

But back to Meep's back property. So let's assume P(W) = P(M) = 50%.

What about P(A)? Here we go with the old divide and conquer strategy.
If I keep an old-fashioned view of the world, the event S that a person is
a human (as in homo Sapiens)= W union M. Also old-fashioned, I assume M &
W are disjoint (no overlap). So keep your she-males to yourself; at this
point, things are complicated enough, so take transgender issues
elsewhere. Now this is cute. Watch the probability fly:

P(A) = P(A & S) = P(A & (W union M)) = P(A & W) + P(A & M)

neat! I split the event "having an ass" into two sub-events: being a
woman with an ass, and being a man with an ass.

So now I've got: P(A) = P(A & W) + P(A & M)
= P(A | W)P(W) + P(A | M)P(M)

Cool! Now I can actually calculate stuff!

P(A & W) = 70% * 50% = 35%
P(A & M) = 50% * 50% = 25%

P(W | A) = 35% / (35% + 25%) = 58%

So far we can guess that Meep is female with 58% probability!


Next, we notice Meep has prominent hips. Indeed, the jeans fit quite
nicely over this hip/ass package. Can we use this information in any way?

Well, again, most women have prominent hips. But even fewer men have
prominent hips.

W & M mean the same thing, but now H = has hips.

P(H | W) = 70%
P(H | M) = 40%

Cool! Let's just chug through the info as before:

P(H & W) = P(H | W) P(W) = 70% * 50% = 35%
P(H & M) = P(H | M) P(M) = 40% * 50% = 20%

P(W | H) = 35% / (35% + 20%) = 64%

Wow! We've got a better lock on! Meep now stands a 64% chance of being
female! But, truthfully, we'd like to combine our two pieces of
information. Indeed, what is P(W | H & A)?

Let's see what info I'd need:

P(W | H & A) = P(W & H & A) / P(H & A)


Actually, we can go several ways from here. But what we really need to
correlate hips & ass (these are =not= independent events, people -- women
with asses tend to have hips, and men with hips tend to have
asses... let's try to use this info to calculate):

P(H | W & A) = 90%
P(A | M & H) = 70%

let's see where this gets us:

P(W & H & A) = P(H | W & A) P(W & A) = 90% * 35% = 31.5%
P(M & H & A) = P(A | M & H) P(M & H) = 70% * 20& = 14%

so

P(W | H & A) = 31.5% / (31.5% + 14%) = 69%

Now Meep has an 69% chance of being female. Truthfully, I don't think
we're going to get much better than this. You might think that combining
the results would actually help the situation better than that, but the
truth is that since hips and ass usually go together for both men and
women, combining the info doesn't take you much farther. However, would
you like to see what happens when hips and ass don't correlate very well
amongst women, and correlate extremely well amongst men?

P(H | W & A) = 40%
P(A | M & H) = 100%

P(W & H & A) = P(H | W & A) P(W & A) = 40% * 35% = 14%
P(M & H & A) = P(A | M & H) P(M & H) = 100% * 20% = 20%

So:

P(W | H & A) = 14% / (14% + 20%) = 41%


I could be going from info that was convincing me someone was female, to
info convincing me someone was male! That's why you've got to be careful
of correlations: if I told you most people who had asses were female, and
most people who had hips were female, but most people who had asses =and=
hips were male, you'd think I was crazy. However, this is something that
happens in real life all the time, due to all sorts of correlations. This
is something called Simpson's paradox.

I'll give you an example from an old Stats text. In the era of burgeoning
women's rights, someone at Berkeley thought they'd look into the graduate
programs at Berkeley and their admissions rate for women vs. men. Ah-ha!
A larger percentage of men were accepted over women! Sexual
discrimination!

However, though this was hot stuff, it wasn't enough to flesh out a
research paper, so they decided to see if they could see which departments
were the main culprits. The departments, after all, were the level where
the actual acceptance/rejection thing was going on.

In =all= departments, women had a higher acceptance rate than men.

What was going on? More women were applying to programs that were more
competitive. So, for example, the education department had a lot of
applicants, mostly women, and had a low acceptance rate. On the other
hand, physics had an applicant pool that was mostly men, but they had
fewer applicants as a whole, and had a higher acceptance rate. Women
=overall= had a higher rejection rate because women flocked to the subject
areas where the rejection rate was higher. Likewise, men "played it
safe" and mainly went for subject areas with less competition.

Interesting, ne?

By the way, the probability of a family having two boys given that it has
at least one boy is 1/3. The probability of a family having two boys
given that the elder child is a boy is 1/2.

And my gender? Well, I once convinced someone online that I was a man
named Mary. That should be good enough for you.

[limabeanactuary]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/261991


So what, then, explains the difference in pay between men and women? It comes down to choices. Even Warren Farrell, who has served three times on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women, explains in his book Why Men Earn More that choices largely account for the differences in earnings between men and women.

While more women than men are earning bachelor’s degrees, for instance, women are choosing to major in less competitive disciplines. A study produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2009 considered what factors male and female students use to choose a major. While it’s hard to pinpoint just one reason for their decision, the author found that men and women alike made their choice based on potential outcomes. The difference is that female students on average cared more about “non-pecuniary” issues like parental approval and enjoyment of future work, while male students were concerned with just the opposite — “pecuniary” issues such as likelihood of finding a job, earning potential, and social status of future jobs.

Similarly, more than three-quarters of American teachers are women. So while nearly half the nation’s workforce is composed of women, many are choosing fields that are less lucrative than the ones many men are choosing.