The Student Room Group

Gender pay gap equates to 1.2 billion women working for nothing

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Original post by ByEeek
No. That will come out next year when all companies over 250 will have to publish their figures. So far we have seen public organisations like Birmingham City Council pay out millions in back pay and the latest revelation from the BBC was no real surprise. We can continue this conversation in April if you like?


How do you know it WILL when it hasn't happened yet?
Original post by yudothis
More girls study, and come middle age gender equality hasn't caught up yet. Because when that cohort started their career, it didn't exist. And of course if all the bosses are men, they will likely hire men to replace them.

Solution is to shift education focus back to helping boys. The other one will be solved just by time to an extent, though the other part I mentioned will be harder to address.

However, none of this negates the fact that women are still seen as inferior in the workplace - numerous studies show that in business meetings women are interrupted more, their ideas are ignored a lot more than those of male colleagues, and similar issues resulting from underlying, subconscious bias.


Studies by who? Gender studies departments or actual sensible scientists who don't preconceive their conclusion? Interrupted more is moot, maybe they talk more, maybe what they say is less valuable on average and therefore a waste of time hearing it out. The fact they are 'interrupted more' is not a metric that tells you anything, in reverse I could argue men are oppressed in business meetings as they're forced to interrupt women just to have an opinion. I'm sure one man is interrupted more or less than another, does that tell us anything? Just measuring something totally random and going 'see sexism' makes it evident these aren't proper studies.

How do you measure if their ideas are ignored a lot more? Do they have seven ideas and the board implements two, whereas a man gets three? Business meetings are the constant building on concepts by discussion, they don't rubber stamp hundreds of ideas per meeting. What if they say something, are ignored, but its then implemented anyway - is that their idea or not? What level of quality are their ideas, I personally knew a bloke who had 100% of his ideas ignored because he was a dumb@ss who kept saying the most ridiculous stuff. How did they control the variable of quality and relevance of idea? This is all incidental information with no controls or further elaboration that proves nothing.

How did they prove underlying subconscious bias? Or that the women were viewed as inferior? Maybe they viewed them as superior and so tore their ideas down to keep their job? Nothing you have mentioned can possibly be proved in any way other than what amounts to saying it snowed on tuesday when I ate an egg, therefore every time I eat an egg it will snow.

Original post by ChaoticButterfly
" We show that EGI has only been improving slowly and that current aggregate EGI is equivalent to 1.2 billion women working for nothing. Moreover, this gap is expected to increase in coming decades. Instrumental variable estimates suggest that while increases in income reduce EGI, living standards will have to triple for equality to be achieved in countries such as Mexico or Turkey."

https://ideas.repec.org/p/lec/leecon/17-14.html

:eek3:


So they took a load of poor countries where often the man supports the household on his own and said 'see pay gap'. Brilliant. Also I'd like to see any proof its for the exact same job - if I hire Helen Mirren to advertise my product and Dave from the pub then I'll pay Mirren a lot more for 'the same job' because despite the fact they are both advertising she has a much higher reach to potentially increase sales thus is worth more money. However if we're going for full 50/50 equality I expect to see 50% of women cleanng sh!t off of sewage pipes for a living and the death rate at work for men and women balanced #DeathRateGap because its unfair men should do such a significant chunk of the dangerous work.


Original post by brimstone131
completely agree that the findings this week from the BBC were shocking, totally wrong..... but his point is that there is not one case of two presenters, one male and female, doing exactly the same workload being paid differently.... what is apparent is that the opportunities given to male presenters and actors are far greater, and the amount they are paid for these even more so


See above. Further apparent how? Hollywood is a meritocracy which is why weird fetishists like Tarantino, madmen like Gibson and publicly embarassing fools like late life crisis poster girl Helen Mirren, or the utterly untalented but inexplicably popular girl who plays Bella in Twilight keep getting jobs - they bring in the money so get their sins forgiven. By what metric are their opportunities greater? Every character now has a female spin off or is a female (hyperbole but point apparent) when they were male before. Where is the proof they have greater opportunities? As aforementioned if they'll bring the money they get paid relative to that, for example Rousey is the highest paid fighter in UFC (male and female).
Original post by GonvilleBromhead
Studies by who? Gender studies departments or actual sensible scientists who don't preconceive their conclusion? Interrupted more is moot, maybe they talk more, maybe what they say is less valuable on average and therefore a waste of time hearing it out. The fact they are 'interrupted more' is not a metric that tells you anything, in reverse I could argue men are oppressed in business meetings as they're forced to interrupt women just to have an opinion. I'm sure one man is interrupted more or less than another, does that tell us anything? Just measuring something totally random and going 'see sexism' makes it evident these aren't proper studies.

How do you measure if their ideas are ignored a lot more? Do they have seven ideas and the board implements two, whereas a man gets three? Business meetings are the constant building on concepts by discussion, they don't rubber stamp hundreds of ideas per meeting. What if they say something, are ignored, but its then implemented anyway - is that their idea or not? What level of quality are their ideas, I personally knew a bloke who had 100% of his ideas ignored because he was a dumb@ss who kept saying the most ridiculous stuff. How did they control the variable of quality and relevance of idea? This is all incidental information with no controls or further elaboration that proves nothing.

How did they prove underlying subconscious bias? Or that the women were viewed as inferior? Maybe they viewed them as superior and so tore their ideas down to keep their job? Nothing you have mentioned can possibly be proved in any way other than what amounts to saying it snowed on tuesday when I ate an egg, therefore every time I eat an egg it will snow.


Typical guy. "I know a bloke who x, hence those studies can't be true coz I know one counterexample" or "something totally random" looooool. :rolleyes:

Just two articles, there are many.

https://www.ft.com/content/51c81a8c-69d9-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f

http://www.businessinsider.com/subtle-ways-women-treated-differently-work-2014-6?IR=T
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by Samendra
I just told u im not making this up, look up the data yourself if you dont believe me.
https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/most_common_occupations_for_women.htm


That is US data. If we are going to throw random stats around, why don't we look at Iceland or Scandinavia where they have a very narrow pay gap? Are the women different in those countries?
Original post by limetang
How do you know it WILL when it hasn't happened yet?


Lots of studies and different countries to compare ourselves to. Interesting to see that Namibia appears to be more progressive than the UK in this matter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/mapped-the-best-and-worst-countries-for-gender-equality/
Original post by ByEeek
That is US data. If we are going to throw random stats around, why don't we look at Iceland or Scandinavia where they have a very narrow pay gap? Are the women different in those countries?


http://uk.businessinsider.com/pink-collar-jobs-dominated-by-women-2015-2?r=US&IR=T :smile:
Original post by yudothis
Typical guy. "I know a bloke who x, hence those studies can't be true coz I know one counterexample" or "something totally random" looooool. :rolleyes:

Just two articles, there are many.

https://www.ft.com/content/51c81a8c-69d9-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f

http://www.businessinsider.com/subtle-ways-women-treated-differently-work-2014-6?IR=T


If you look at the sources for all of these then it is much to do with psychology and most of the points are outright stupid, take point no 3, women get lower initial offers because they dont negotiate? LOL well naa.
Original post by yudothis
I wasn't talking about CEOs as the only bosses in companies.


Even lower level management don't usually hire their replacement


Yep. I get that. And if you look at 20 jobs dominated by men you will find they are generally significantly better paid. So why is that? Serious question.

And don't start your answer with, "Because women..."
Original post by ByEeek
Yep. I get that. And if you look at 20 jobs dominated by men you will find they are generally significantly better paid. So why is that? Serious question.

And don't start your answer with, "Because women..."


I wasnt going to, Look at the jobs women go into and then look at the jobs guys go into, guys go into higher paying careers and women go on to become things like primary school teachers or nurses which are less well payed. Dont know why its so hard to understand business men want to put the best qualified and able person on the job they dont care what gender they are, plus even if they did look the number of women starting businesses and then look at the no. men. Its a simple fact that men want to go into things like finance and business which women dont, then they b*tch because they get paid less? gtfo.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by JohnGreek
The title is misleading. You've taken a certain figure, scaled it globally, and then pretended that some women are being paid the same as men, while another 1.2bn is being paid nothing (which lowers the average). In practice, the overwhelming number of women who work are being paid, only at a lesser rate, which corresponds to their positions and lack of negotiating power.

We need more nasty, forceful women, who aren't afraid to stand up for themselves in interviews and to their bosses. We should also be encouraging open, frank discussion as to what a woman's career and family plans are during child-bearing age.

If it is a private company why should they suffer losses because she is going to get pregnant?
Original post by Samendra
Dont know why its so hard to understand business men want to put the best qualified and able person on the job they dont care what gender they are


Where I think that it is the case amongst some business people I don't think it is the norm. I think the old-boys club is alive and kicking and within many areas of business and commerce people hire people they know, not the best for the job. It is also the case that men often fear women they perceive to be better than themselves. You only have to watch Naked and Afraid to see this in action.

The thing that saddens me is that you seem to assume that men are naturally better for some jobs than others. I completely disagree and educational attainment would back me up on that where girls consistently outperform boys at school. We need to become more diverse in the workplace. It is a good thing. One should not be fearful of women coming into male dominated businesses.

Only this morning I read an article about the cyber industry failing to tackle cyber crime because it is focusing too much on the technical issues rather than the issues that affect people? Why? Because the cyber industry is full of nerdy men. If there were more women in cyber, its ability to tackle cyber crime and attacks would vastly improve. It needs a PR drive aimed at women.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40671089
Original post by ByEeek
Where I think that it is the case amongst some business people I don't think it is the norm. I think the old-boys club is alive and kicking and within many areas of business and commerce people hire people they know, not the best for the job. It is also the case that men often fear women they perceive to be better than themselves. You only have to watch Naked and Afraid to see this in action.

The thing that saddens me is that you seem to assume that men are naturally better for some jobs than others. I completely disagree and educational attainment would back me up on that where girls consistently outperform boys at school. We need to become more diverse in the workplace. It is a good thing. One should not be fearful of women coming into male dominated businesses.

Only this morning I read an article about the cyber industry failing to tackle cyber crime because it is focusing too much on the technical issues rather than the issues that affect people? Why? Because the cyber industry is full of nerdy men. If there were more women in cyber, its ability to tackle cyber crime and attacks would vastly improve. It needs a PR drive aimed at women.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40671089


So your saying women arent nerdy, without evidence, as usual?
Original post by Samendra
If you look at the sources for all of these then it is much to do with psychology and most of the points are outright stupid, take point no 3, women get lower initial offers because they dont negotiate? LOL well naa.


That's a pretty standard fact that even people arguing against feminists bring up to show that "it's women's own fault, men negotiate, women don't".

But didn't expect much else from you. You are inherently incapable of differentiating between your biased view and the average experience of women and men.
Original post by Samendra
If it is a private company why should they suffer losses because she is going to get pregnant?


Why should women get pregnant if it hinders their career? I mean who needs a stable population in the long run?
Original post by JohnGreek
Sorry, I should have explained that point better (at the beach rn)

Basically, it shouldn't be taboo to ask a woman as to whether she's thinking of having a baby when she enters her late 20s-30s. Under the status quo, you're having companies move away from promoting women on a perceived fear of her having to take time out for her children. This punishes women who don't plan on raising a family in the foreseeable future.

Equal time taken out for maternity/paternity leave could also help bridge the gap. Have a woman spend the first few months with her newborn, and then force her husband to spend an equal amount of time with the child. The time shouldn't be transferrable.

First point that I actually agree with, but I don't see how people can know if she is planning on getting pregnant or not

Original post by yudothis
That's a pretty standard fact that even people arguing against feminists bring up to show that "it's women's own fault, men negotiate, women don't".

But didn't expect much else from you. You are inherently incapable of differentiating between your biased view and the average experience of women and men.

lmao, I got that from one of your sources :tongue: who looks stupid now.

Original post by yudothis
Why should women get pregnant if it hinders their career? I mean who needs a stable population in the long run?

We are talking about women getting promoted in business, the population is rising anyway it will be better if more women don't get pregnant.
Original post by JohnGreek
Sorry, I should have explained that point better (at the beach rn)

Basically, it shouldn't be taboo to ask a woman as to whether she's thinking of having a baby when she enters her late 20s-30s. Under the status quo, you're having companies move away from promoting women on a perceived fear of her having to take time out for her children. This punishes women who don't plan on raising a family in the foreseeable future.

Equal time taken out for maternity/paternity leave could also help bridge the gap. Have a woman spend the first few months with her newborn, and then force her husband to spend an equal amount of time with the child. The time shouldn't be transferrable.


so jelly :frown:, meanwhile at work and on tsr
Original post by yudothis
Typical guy. "I know a bloke who x, hence those studies can't be true coz I know one counterexample" or "something totally random" looooool. :rolleyes:

Just two articles, there are many.

https://www.ft.com/content/51c81a8c-69d9-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f

http://www.businessinsider.com/subtle-ways-women-treated-differently-work-2014-6?IR=T


That business insider list is laughable
Original post by Samendra
So your saying women arent nerdy, without evidence, as usual?


Does working in the software industry for 16 years count? During that time I worked with only 2 women. I now teach girls computing. The interest drops off around year 8, something I plan to tackle. What are you doing about it?
Original post by ByEeek
Does working in the software industry for 16 years count? During that time I worked with only 2 women. I now teach girls computing. The interest drops off around year 8, something I plan to tackle. What are you doing about it?


Why are you trying to get them interested, they are exposed to computing from primary school till year 9, they will decide if they like it or not. It just happens that most girls don't like computing, looks like you are trying to force your interests onto them because you feel lonely, why does it matter how many of whatever gender you've worked with? why does gender even come up?
(edited 6 years ago)

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