My company did a pan-company investigation into how much people were being paid, and found that in every job title Women were being paid on average 30% less then men.
With that in hand it's clear that it makes more sense to employ women.
It doesn’t have to be blatant or any one person acting in bad faith. That’s the whole meaning of systemic $x-ism.
It’s a well known phenomenon that men will apply for a job if they are only 60% qualified but women only apply for jobs for which they are 100% qualified (https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...). Also women don’t negotiate as hard.
In an ideal world, If two people have the same job and have the same skills and bring the same amount of internal knowledge to the company they should be paid the same. Their salary shouldn’t be affected by their negotiation ability.
As far as women not applying, that’s the classic pipeline problem. You have to get women to apply.
Also if jobs come from referrals, if men mostly know other men, they are going to recommend other men.
That’s the whole point of systemic $x-ism. The HR department is not purposefully excluding women and people are not purposefully referring men over women.
Anecdotally, working at small companies for over 20 years, I’ve only worked directly with 5 female developers that I know well enough to refer. When I was hiring contractors for a small department, only one female applicant came across my desk in over a year.
On the other hand, I worked with one female developer who was very good but didn’t want to leave for more money because of work life balance reasons and she had small kids. I’m well aware that women more often make that choice than men.
> Their salary shouldn’t be affected by their negotiation ability.
I can't disagree more with this statement. Salary is a negotiation process between an employee and an employer. Employers are always trying to keep costs as low as possible and employees are trying to sell themselves to gain as high a salary as possible.
This sounds awfully close to ideas I've heard from pro-Socialist types who would like pure equality of income across job titles not just in a company, but ACROSS companies. That is a world you do not want to live in.
Not employees, employers, NOR the general public want that future regardless of how much they unfoundedly believe it is helping anyone.
Isn’t it a stretch to call it “socialism” that the same job at the same company with two people who have the same set of skills “socialism”?
In that case though since a free market is conditioned on both sides having equal knowledge would you be okay if employees were forced to disclose all employees salaries?
It certainly begins to play into the realm of Socialism when one advocates that there should be laws in place which mandate salary laws which restrict an individual's ability to negotiate for themselves. I'm not saying that you're necessarily advocating for that because I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I have been involved in a number of discussions with people who are interested in exploring that path.
> In that case though since a free market is conditioned on both sides having equal knowledge would you be okay if employees were forced to disclose all employees salaries?
That is an interesting idea to think over. I would take out the word "forced". There are pros and cons to employees being knowledgeable about each other's salaries and many companies put the effort in to make salary discussion among employees a taboo.
The idea of a company reprimanding the mere discussion of salary is not a quality I would value, but would not necessarily turn me off to that company depending on numerous other factors: a prominent one being WHY that is the case at that particular company.
Also looking back at your comment again, I wouldn't say that I agree with the idea that "a free market is conditioned on both sides having equal knowledge". As a matter of fact, I don't see how that could be inferred. I would lean towards the idea that both parties should try and have as much information as possible. If that works out in my favor, then great. If it works out against me, then I obviously have more research to do.
certainly begins to play into the realm of Socialism when one advocates that there should be laws in place which mandate salary laws which restrict an individual's...
Strangely enough you were the only one to bring up anything about laws being passed.....
Are you also opposed to the government forcing products like cigarettes to have disclaimers where the buyer can decide to buy them or not knowing the risk involved?
Would you be okay with all of the products you buy having no prices and people getting better prices based on negotiation?
> Strangely enough you were the only one to bring up anything about laws being passed.....
How else are you proposing that we mandate equal salaries?
> Are you also opposed to the government forcing products like cigarettes to have disclaimers where the buyer can decide to buy them or not knowing the risk involved?
I think it is strange how arbitrary it is to mark cigarettes like this.
Why not put domestic abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, car accidents, and alcoholism pictures on every bottle of beer?
Why not put mutilated corpses of people who have died in the vehicle on the side of every car you look at buying?
Why is it just cigarettes that gets that treatment? Why should even cigarettes get that treatment?
There are a million things you can do that harm yourself and others. Freedom of choice + Education is key, NOT government mandate of whatever it decides is safe for your consumption.
> Would you be okay with all of the products you buy having no prices and people getting better prices based on negotiation?
That's exactly how the market works. You are constantly negotiating when you make any financial decision. If people decide that Store XYZ has bread that is too expensive, they can go to Store FGH. Just because many individual stores set prices doesn't mean that there aren't macro negotiations constantly happening. That's pretty much the definition of the free market.
Also micro negotiations are allowed to happen thanks to a free market. Sometimes you get ripped off, sometimes you get a good deal. Again, education is key. You get burned so you learn.
With that in hand it's clear that it makes more sense to employ women.