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On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 22:53 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 21:43 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
In terms of economics it would be preposterous to suggest that equally qualified workers would recieve different wages solely based on their gender. Businesses that choose to employ overpaid men in favor of underpaid women would go out of business in favor of businesses employing only the equally qualified cheap women. The greater demand for the cheap women would create an upwards pressure on wages for women and a downward pressure on the wages of men, resulting in equal pay in equilibirum.
The explanation must lie in elsewhere, discrimination can't account for differences in wages. One obvious factor would be the fact that the cost of pregnancy and child rearing responsibility disproportionately lies with female workers, and employers pay part of this cost through maternity leave, decreased productivity and lack of flexibility. The fact that women get pregnant and men don't, and women are most often the primary care giver is atleast in part founded in biology, and only a limited number of policy options are available to correct this difference. For example forcing employers to give as much paternity leave as maternity leave, like in some scandinavian countries. Ecouraging fathers to take more of the child rearing responsibilities is a more difficult problem, and I feel that complete parity can never be achieved, though there certainly has been a move towards greater participation by fathers.
For elite professions the disparity can be explained in terms of different inherent preferences and perhaps even abillity. Women on average have a greater preference to work with people, wheras men more often than women prefer to work with things. Furthermore, to achieve the very top of any profession requires something of a single minded preoccupation that one might call an obsession, and I think men are more prone to develop that, whereas women's preoccupaitons might on average be more varied. To support this assertion I offer the fact that autism spectrum syndromes, partly characterized by obsessions for certain patterns, are much more prevalent in men, and a popular explanation for this is the ''male brain hypothesis". Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but I believe this can atleast offer some insight into the differences between men and women in elite professions.
Even if I am wrong about some of these things, I still don't believe patriarchy is a useful concept that does offer insight. Perhaps you would be so kind as to offer explanations in terms of patriarhy, so we may decide whether this offers some superior or additional insight. lol Do you believe in that ? Wage has nothing to do with productivity, women are on average paid less because it is a social convention to do so. Pregnancy is the excuse. The proof is that the disparities in salaries are way less for younger generations. Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion. I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do.
I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy.
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On December 25 2013 00:09 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 22:53 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 21:43 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 20:40 Sub40APM wrote:On December 24 2013 19:11 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
, which pretty much holds that even though women have equal rights in every way, are still somehow being opressed by some abstraction. What I am disputing is that patriarchy is a useful concept to describe any phenomenon in contemporary society.
I would be curious to hear your explanation why despite being legally equal women seem to be underrepresented in a number of elite professions and why their incomes -- even for the same level of education -- stagnate. In terms of economics it would be preposterous to suggest that equally qualified workers would recieve different wages solely based on their gender. Businesses that choose to employ overpaid men in favor of underpaid women would go out of business in favor of businesses employing only the equally qualified cheap women. The greater demand for the cheap women would create an upwards pressure on wages for women and a downward pressure on the wages of men, resulting in equal pay in equilibirum. The explanation must lie in elsewhere, discrimination can't account for differences in wages. One obvious factor would be the fact that the cost of pregnancy and child rearing responsibility disproportionately lies with female workers, and employers pay part of this cost through maternity leave, decreased productivity and lack of flexibility. The fact that women get pregnant and men don't, and women are most often the primary care giver is atleast in part founded in biology, and only a limited number of policy options are available to correct this difference. For example forcing employers to give as much paternity leave as maternity leave, like in some scandinavian countries. Ecouraging fathers to take more of the child rearing responsibilities is a more difficult problem, and I feel that complete parity can never be achieved, though there certainly has been a move towards greater participation by fathers. For elite professions the disparity can be explained in terms of different inherent preferences and perhaps even abillity. Women on average have a greater preference to work with people, wheras men more often than women prefer to work with things. Furthermore, to achieve the very top of any profession requires something of a single minded preoccupation that one might call an obsession, and I think men are more prone to develop that, whereas women's preoccupaitons might on average be more varied. To support this assertion I offer the fact that autism spectrum syndromes, partly characterized by obsessions for certain patterns, are much more prevalent in men, and a popular explanation for this is the ''male brain hypothesis". Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but I believe this can atleast offer some insight into the differences between men and women in elite professions. Even if I am wrong about some of these things, I still don't believe patriarchy is a useful concept that does offer insight. Perhaps you would be so kind as to offer explanations in terms of patriarhy, so we may decide whether this offers some superior or additional insight. lol Do you believe in that ? Wage has nothing to do with productivity, women are on average paid less because it is a social convention to do so. Pregnancy is the excuse. The proof is that the disparities in salaries are way less for younger generations. Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion. I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Hi, this took all of 30 seconds to find. http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdfBasically you can put a guys name and a girls name on the very same resume, send it to the same employer and have the man offered the job and the woman rejected.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was reversed for female dominated professions.
Interestingly, HR tends to be female dominated. It's also becoming more data driven than in the past, so that should improve the situation going forward.
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United States43991 Posts
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that?
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On December 25 2013 00:09 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 22:53 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 21:43 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 20:40 Sub40APM wrote:On December 24 2013 19:11 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
, which pretty much holds that even though women have equal rights in every way, are still somehow being opressed by some abstraction. What I am disputing is that patriarchy is a useful concept to describe any phenomenon in contemporary society.
I would be curious to hear your explanation why despite being legally equal women seem to be underrepresented in a number of elite professions and why their incomes -- even for the same level of education -- stagnate. In terms of economics it would be preposterous to suggest that equally qualified workers would recieve different wages solely based on their gender. Businesses that choose to employ overpaid men in favor of underpaid women would go out of business in favor of businesses employing only the equally qualified cheap women. The greater demand for the cheap women would create an upwards pressure on wages for women and a downward pressure on the wages of men, resulting in equal pay in equilibirum. The explanation must lie in elsewhere, discrimination can't account for differences in wages. One obvious factor would be the fact that the cost of pregnancy and child rearing responsibility disproportionately lies with female workers, and employers pay part of this cost through maternity leave, decreased productivity and lack of flexibility. The fact that women get pregnant and men don't, and women are most often the primary care giver is atleast in part founded in biology, and only a limited number of policy options are available to correct this difference. For example forcing employers to give as much paternity leave as maternity leave, like in some scandinavian countries. Ecouraging fathers to take more of the child rearing responsibilities is a more difficult problem, and I feel that complete parity can never be achieved, though there certainly has been a move towards greater participation by fathers. For elite professions the disparity can be explained in terms of different inherent preferences and perhaps even abillity. Women on average have a greater preference to work with people, wheras men more often than women prefer to work with things. Furthermore, to achieve the very top of any profession requires something of a single minded preoccupation that one might call an obsession, and I think men are more prone to develop that, whereas women's preoccupaitons might on average be more varied. To support this assertion I offer the fact that autism spectrum syndromes, partly characterized by obsessions for certain patterns, are much more prevalent in men, and a popular explanation for this is the ''male brain hypothesis". Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but I believe this can atleast offer some insight into the differences between men and women in elite professions. Even if I am wrong about some of these things, I still don't believe patriarchy is a useful concept that does offer insight. Perhaps you would be so kind as to offer explanations in terms of patriarhy, so we may decide whether this offers some superior or additional insight. lol Do you believe in that ? Wage has nothing to do with productivity, women are on average paid less because it is a social convention to do so. Pregnancy is the excuse. The proof is that the disparities in salaries are way less for younger generations. Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion. I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Hi, this took all of 30 seconds to find. http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdfBasically you can put a guys name and a girls name on the very same resume, send it to the same employer and have the man offered the job and the woman rejected.
And then there are studies such as this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274
Which finds that men have almost no same sex preference when it comes to making decisions, which is, as far as I understand, in conflict with patriarchy theory.
Or the sevveral studies which find that women with children are judged far less favorably than men with children (more so than childless men and women), which is in line with a rational actors view of the situation, given that women are more often the primary caregiver.
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United States43991 Posts
On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 22:53 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
lol Do you believe in that ? Wage has nothing to do with productivity, women are on average paid less because it is a social convention to do so. Pregnancy is the excuse. The proof is that the disparities in salaries are way less for younger generations. Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion. I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy.
Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making.
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Does that study consider preferences in the employment context, like the studies that other posters have referred to?
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On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion.
I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making.
The wage gap is usually smaller than 20% for the exact same job. Hiring practices are also generally not very good indicators of actual work performance.
As far as irrationality in sexist hiring practices, some of that irrationality is poor pattern recognition - "successful workers in a given occupation are mostly men, so men must be better at it." Which maybe true, though usually there's some deeper characteristic behind it.
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United States43991 Posts
On December 25 2013 00:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground.
Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making. The wage gap is usually smaller than 20% for the exact same job. Hiring practices are also generally not very good indicators of actual work performance.
His contention is that the market is sufficiently rational that all employment practices, from hiring to pay, are indicative of the most optimal solution to running the business because if they weren't then the business would go under. You're right that it's not that simple but I don't need the reality of the situation to argue against him because he's an invisible hand zealot for whom reality is unimportant. As long as he believes they're connected, and in a rational and highly competitive model they would be, that'll do.
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On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that?
Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now.
As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences.
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United States43991 Posts
On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences.
You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so.
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On December 25 2013 00:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences. You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so.
I don't understand why this is required. Insitutionalized discrimination based on ideology and religion does not need to be rational, in order for the rational actor assumption in an employment context to hold approximately true.
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United States43991 Posts
On December 25 2013 01:00 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:53 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences. You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so. I don't understand why this is required. Insitutionalized discrimination based on ideology and religion does not need to be rational, in order for the rational actor assumption in an employment context to hold approximately true.
So we're happy that there was institutionalised discrimination which was extremely irrational throughout history without the invisible hand striking it down with its perfectly rational prophets bestowed with perfect information? When did this state of affairs end according to you?
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On December 25 2013 01:02 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 01:00 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:53 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences. You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so. I don't understand why this is required. Insitutionalized discrimination based on ideology and religion does not need to be rational, in order for the rational actor assumption in an employment context to hold approximately true. So we're happy that there was institutionalised discrimination which was extremely irrational throughout history without the invisible hand striking it down with its perfectly rational prophets bestowed with perfect information? When did this state of affairs end according to you?
I don't get why you are using the invisible hand analogy, rational actors and market forces require no exogenous help. I decline to comment on when it ended exactly, somewhere in latter half of the previous century i suppose.
Edit: Out of interest, do you believe that things such as the wage gap and the inequality of gender proportions in certain professions are solely the cause of patriarchy? I must help prepare christmas dinner now, I'll be happy to argue more later.
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On December 25 2013 00:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making. The wage gap is usually smaller than 20% for the exact same job. Hiring practices are also generally not very good indicators of actual work performance. His contention is that the market is sufficiently rational that all employment practices, from hiring to pay, are indicative of the most optimal solution to running the business because if they weren't then the business would go under. You're right that it's not that simple but I don't need the reality of the situation to argue against him because he's an invisible hand zealot for whom reality is unimportant. As long as he believes they're connected, and in a rational and highly competitive model they would be, that'll do.
I think his argument depends on the size of the pay gap in question, though. A 20% pay gap could plausibly create a competitive advantage. I'm pretty doubtful that a <5% gap would, depending on firm / industry characteristics.
Small pay gaps could also be rational in a sense. A 5% premium could plausibly be the price of a hiring shortcut or for maintaining a firm's political / cultural environment.
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On December 25 2013 00:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences. You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so.
I think historically gender norms are often just a shortcut. Men are better at 90% of work outside of the home (farming with a plow), so it just becomes the norm that men do the work outside of the home. As work has changed to become more friendly to women, that norm has broken down.
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On December 25 2013 01:12 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:51 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:
[quote]
Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real.
It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses.
I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making. The wage gap is usually smaller than 20% for the exact same job. Hiring practices are also generally not very good indicators of actual work performance. His contention is that the market is sufficiently rational that all employment practices, from hiring to pay, are indicative of the most optimal solution to running the business because if they weren't then the business would go under. You're right that it's not that simple but I don't need the reality of the situation to argue against him because he's an invisible hand zealot for whom reality is unimportant. As long as he believes they're connected, and in a rational and highly competitive model they would be, that'll do. I think his argument depends on the size of the pay gap in question, though. A 20% pay gap could plausibly create a competitive advantage. I'm pretty doubtful that a <5% gap would, depending on firm / industry characteristics. Small pay gaps could also be rational in a sense. A 5% premium could plausibly be the price of a hiring shortcut or for maintaining a firm's political / cultural environment.
That is accurate, I suppose some degree of irrational discrimination could plausibly exist but I find it highly doubtful it can create large discrepancies. Policy should be directed towards removing real incentives for firms to hire men over women, I believe this offers alot more opportunity for decreasing gender inequality than the alternative explanation of irrationality.
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On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:On December 24 2013 23:16 Crushinator wrote:
[quote]
Wage having "nothing" to do with productivity is a laughable assertion.
I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground. Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making.
The decision can be rational if for example firms expect that the female candidate will be absent more than her male counterpart due to children. My argument is that "hidden" factors such as those largely account for the wage gap, and not irrational discrimination.
I should once again point out that your presentation of my beliefs about differing intellectual abilities is inaccurate.
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On December 25 2013 01:31 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground.
Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making. The decision can be rational if for example firms expect that the female candidate will be absent more than her male counterpart due to children. My argument is that "hidden" factors such as those largely account for the wage gap, and not irrational discrimination.
Do you have statistics to support this argument?
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On December 25 2013 01:31 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 00:39 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:25 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:15 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:11 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:08 WhiteDog wrote:On December 25 2013 00:03 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:51 Mercy13 wrote:On December 24 2013 23:39 Crushinator wrote:On December 24 2013 23:29 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
I'll take the time to be clearer. The idea that people are paid at marginal productivity is retarded. It's a fraud some economists came up and it's actually a good exemple of a theory that has no empirical ground.
Now, for sure, there is an indirect link between individual "productivity" (something that you can't measure) and wage, as education and certifiate cultural capital can be arguments in a negociation or in a conflict, but wage overall are defined by balance of power between various social group - it's something Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Karl Marx all agreed upon by the way. So you believe that wage discrepancies can exist between equally productive workers, based only on sex? I see absolutely no possibility for it, my reasoning is sound, and you have done nothing to discredit it. It holds despite the fact that the models that set w=MPL are too simple to describe the real world, w=MPL is not a necessary condition for my reasoning. Rational actors would not hire more expensive workers, if they can hire cheaper but equally productive workers. And irrational actors would go out of business. Here's your problem. People often don't behave rationally; see behavioral economics. Even if people are rational, they don't make the optimal choice unless they have perfect information. Consider a sexist who is interviewing a man and woman for the same position. The woman is objectively a better candidate, but the interviewer is sexist so he thinks the man is a better candidate and hires him instead. This pattern is repeated across the economy because sexism is real. It's dangerous to talk about economics when you only have a class or two under your belt. I majored in economics, which means I know just enough about the subject to know that I don't know shit about economics. The real world doesn't fit into the neat little graphs that you learn about in introductory economics courses. I will soon have a masters degree in economics. Models that assume rational actors very often make useful predictions about economic choices.. That is not to say that I don't think individuals can be sexist, I just find it highly implausible that the wage gap can be eplained by patriarchy theory. It would require a solid body of evidence in any case. You would have to show that men have a significant amount of same group preference, that men are more often judged favorably, etc. The evidence for this very scarce as far as I can tell. Makes me think about Larry Summers joking about some economists who would argue that an electricity breakdown would not hurt the economy more than 3% of GDP because the electricity represent 3% of GDP. Just because we don't entirely understands how it work does not mean it's wrong. And for your reasonning there are no evidence at all, and none can be made. By the way I have a master in economy you know. So we should just believe something for ideological reasons, without evidence instead? Explanations that require widespread irrationality, are not good explanations at all. There is a lot of evidence for discriminatory employment practices, the fact that you're blissfully unaware of it doesn't discredit it. Furthermore your belief in rational humans is purely ideological, we're about to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn't born this time of year by telling our kids that a fat man is going to climb down a chimney and putting trees indoors. And yet you think sexism is too irrational for humans to do. I do not dispute discriminatory employement practices at all, my acknowledgement of the wage gap shuld be evidence of that. I dispute the reasons for the discrepancies, whether or not they are the result of actors making rational decisions based on the limited information presented, or are making irrational decisions based on sexism, and specifically patriarchy. Okay, imagine there was a way you could put job competency into a simple number. Your contention, as I understand it, is that men can have numbers from 0 (shit) to 100 (amazing) while women max out at 80 because they're not as good as men which is why they get paid less. What the research into employment practices show is that a male candidate who would rank a 60 is more likely to get the job than a female candidate who would also rank a 60. The same resume, listing the same educational experiences, same skills etc. This is not rational decision making. The decision can be rational if for example firms expect that the female candidate will be absent more than her male counterpart due to children. My argument is that "hidden" factors such as those largely account for the wage gap, and not irrational discrimination. I should once again point out that your presentation of my beliefs about differing intellectual abilities is inaccurate.
That belief is only rational if it is also TRUE. So back it up with data!
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United States43991 Posts
On December 25 2013 01:06 Crushinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2013 01:02 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 01:00 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:53 KwarK wrote:On December 25 2013 00:51 Crushinator wrote:On December 25 2013 00:35 KwarK wrote:
Let's approach this from another angle. You believe that women are, to use an arbitrary figure, 80% as productive as men and therefore the invisible hand has ascribed their labour a value 80% of the value of that of an equivalent man. Now, the value of male labour varies hugely as does the ability of the men doing it. What this means is that the more able women will be more able than the less able men and will be able to perform a better job, something which will have always been true. Even if women aren't as good as men on average the better women will still be better than the worse men.
Now, throughout human history all of the educated jobs have been dominated by men. From clerks to book keepers, even the priesthood, if it involved reading or counting a man did it. We're forced to either conclude that women are so inferior to men that men were able to monopolise all of the more intellectually challenging work throughout history (and still are but are now being allowed to do jobs they're totally unqualified for in modern society in the name of equality) or that throughout history women who were more able than their male rivals were barred from contributing. Even if we accept your starting assumption that women are inferior to men the degree they would have to be inferior by to judge the male history of humanity is staggering. Of course the only other possibility is that there was a systematic irrational choice to favour inferior men over women for hundreds of millions of positions over thousands of years.
I can't see how your position ends anywhere but "Yes, all that discrimination in the past was all hugely irrational, clearly some women would have been better than some men even if the average man is superior to the average woman, but all that ended on (insert date here) and there is no more discrimination and the market has now found the correct value of female labour because irrational decision making cannot be sustained over a period of time longer than the thousands of years it happened for which stopped on (date) and as we now live in a rational world that proves that the discrimination is over".
Is there a flaw in that? Women stayed at home, largely because maintaining a household and looking after children were far more timeconsuming than it is now. Technologies such as the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, daycare for children etc. have made a huge impact on the position on women. In a sense, it was unjust but not irrational to restrict the employment of women. The division of labour in a household was much more important back then. The rational actor assumption is not required to explain anything here though, there wasn't much freedom of choice was there? Women were just very restricted in their freedom to seek education and employment. Discrimination was very much institutional, wheras I would assert it is not now. As a sidenote, I do not think that on average men are superior to women in every field and occupation, and I resent your suggestion that I do. I do think it would be a remarkable coincidence if men and women had the exact same average aptitude for everything, given that we are so ready to accept other gender differences. You haven't explained why women doing the more time consuming work while men do the more intellectual work is a rational allocation of household labour in every case, including the cases in which the woman was significantly more able at the intellectual work. Please do so. I don't understand why this is required. Insitutionalized discrimination based on ideology and religion does not need to be rational, in order for the rational actor assumption in an employment context to hold approximately true. So we're happy that there was institutionalised discrimination which was extremely irrational throughout history without the invisible hand striking it down with its perfectly rational prophets bestowed with perfect information? When did this state of affairs end according to you? I don't get why you are using the invisible hand analogy, rational actors and market forces require no exogenous help. I decline to comment on when it ended exactly, somewhere in latter half of the previous century i suppose.
Okay so if I'm understanding how you think this works then you believe that for a very, very long time over a countless number of instances irrational decision making was pursued to create a very suboptimal outcome with nothing bad ever happening from it and then, at some point in the 20th Century, all the irrational decision making stopped because bad stuff started happening from it and the reason why there can be no irrational decisions now is because if there were any then they would be stamped out by the bad stuff which started happening and therefore everything that happens now must be rational and if it looks a lot like the stuff that was irrational that people used to do without any bad stuff happening to them then that's coincidence because it can't be the same stuff because even though nothing bad happened to them something in the mid 20th Century changed everything and now bad stuff will happen.
That about cover it?
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EPT
