Skeptic134

Yes, getting women into the higher paying professions will combat the gap that the OP was showing. I don't think you can disagree with that because it was a comparison of income at a percentile by gender not income in the same position with same qualifications by gender. I'm not naive enough to think there is never a difference in pay between equally qualified men and women in the same position but I believe there is much more to the gender pay gap than simple pay discrimination. I believe it is a cultural issue of promoting and presenting the same oppurtunities to females as males in certain areas and the fact that women are represented in the higher pay careers much less than men. What also can't be ignored is when you have 2 or 3 men for every women in certain professions than obviously statistically speaking it is more likely the raises and promotions will go to men all things being completely equal. I asked for the specific data because you made a very definitive remark that seemed to dimiss the very real quantifiable reality that even though there are more women accountants there are fewer women CPAs than men. Clearly that will have an effect on average industry pay. If the data comparing equally qualified male to female accountant pay does exist, I'd love to see it. Likewise, your latest link doesn't compare qualifications, so it isn't comparing CPAs to CPAs and entry level to entry level, so the data isn't going to properly show gender gap. If 60% of CPAs are men but only 40% of accountants are men of course the pay for male accountants will be higher on average even if there was zero discrimination. I guess my point is that instead of attacking at what IMO is the wrong end, why don't we make sure we first understand why female representation in higher paying careers is so small. Then we can go after the cultural changes to try and address the issues. Because IMO I don't think the solution for example is to simply get higher pay for the 20% of engineers that are women but instead figure out why only 20% of engineers are women in the first place.

You have a link to studies comparing pay of equally qualified accountants male vs female? That's very specific and much more difficult to gather that data than the much more general datasets from like the OP. And I'm not disputing that there are instances where equal pay isn't always given women with equal qualification in the same position. However, I think you have to figure out and address first why 60% of accountants are women but only 40% of CPAs are women and why only 20% of engineers are women. Because those are the reasons why the data in the OP are what they are, since it isn't comparing job to job, qualifcation to qualification.

By trying to create environments that foster and promote oppurtunities for women to go into all fields you wouldn't just be talking about the very few jobs at the tip top of the spectrum. It would have an effect across the entire career spectrum. As an example, currently only 20% of engineers are female, while most engineering positions probably aren't in the top 5% of pay, those jobs would represent perhaps the top 25% of pay. Thus if you start increasing oppurtunities and establishing a culture that engineering is just as much for women as men, there is a large shift that can occur. Similarly, only 33% of doctors are female and the same with lawyers. Also interesting is that 60% of accountants are female. However, only 40% of CPAs are female. For those unfamiliar with accounting, to become a CPA you need your bachelors degree and than continuing education hours almost to the point of a masters so most just get the masters degree. Then after x years experience you take 4 subject area standardized tests. Without CPA certification and accountant's pay is going to be very limited. I just don't see how this attacks the problem at the right end. For starters in general I don't believe unions are necessarily good or always work as intended. And in the case of trying to provide oppurtunities to increase the representation of women in engineering, medicine, law and reaching higher levels in accountanting a union doesn't help at all. It's not about creating laws or organizations that try to force companies to pay women more perhaps artificially, its about changing a culture from the ground up so that girls like math and science just as much as boys. And women go into these fields just as much as men and don't feel like an outsider. Afterall, how does a union help female accountants who haven't passed the CPA exam?

I believe this is definitely a part, perhaps majoritive part, of the problem.

Absolutely. People "voting" with their wallets works, it isn't always immediate but it works. Likewise bad publicity espcially with social media works as well. And I think this goes beyond gender pay discrimination.

Actually, I did make an error in my first post, I will correct it here and use more detail. According to the links I used above, about 5% of the workforce (male and female) is at the minimum wage level, then I used your value of 70% of minimum wage workers being female to calculate that 3.5% of the entire workforce are female minimum wage workers. Further, females make up 47% of the total workforce. So, that means that .035 / .47 = .0745 or 7.5% of female workers are minimum wage and will see the pay increase. Similarly though, 2.8% of male workers will see that increase. So really, even though 7.5% of female workers will see the hypothetical $2 increase that would result in the average increasing by $.15, the change in the gap will be even less than that because some men saw the increase as well. I agree, there might also be some small increases just above minimum wage but my point was if the gap was a hypothetical $5 on average an hour right now, it decreasing to $4.85 is fairly small change in the gender gap.

I think too often the idea of adding more laws to fix things seems like the approach but you point out yourself it is about enforcement and thus the funding to staff the agencies etc, which costs money, perhaps lots of money. How big of a federal agency will need to be created to effectively enforce the current and potentially new laws? How will corporate cooperation be forced? Penalties? What severity? This type of approach just makes me nervous. Is a massive industry of beurocrats and lawyers going to be created that grows over time and we don't even know how effecient or effective it will be? I would suggest baby steps with this type of approach. Start with the existing laws and figure out ways to start improving enforcement gradually versus massive overhaul type adjustments, not that you are are suggesting massive immediate overhauls. But there really is that much performance difference in the same position. As an example, engineers with the same degree, same experience level and in the same position will have very different quality and quantity of work output. The one who always leaves at 5 versus the one that gets there early and leaves when something is done. The one that does what is asked versus the one that doesn't need supervision because they are self motivated. I don't think you can simply define a position as having one level of pay and assume that it would be a different position if the performance was significantly different. It is a cultural thing that women typically as you state are more often going to have the career interruptions. If we want a cultural shift of women taking similar career paths traditioinal of men than we should expect changes to this cultural norm as well, ie some men beginning to stay home versus be the bread winner, a family decision basically. I don't think it necessarily makes sense to expect we modify a culture in one way but then don't expect the related dynamics to change. Also, some people choose not to have children. They are making a personal choice that they accept the consequences of as well as the positive, which is focus on career. If the opposite choice is made to have children shouldn't the individual accept both the positive and negative of that decision too? I know there are plenty of instances where having children wasn't necessarily planned, but I believe that begins to tread into other issues that need to be focused on. Sources for my numbers: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130325.htm http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2012.pdf I had a hard time finding average data but on average women make 78% of men. So if the average female hourly rate is $20 men would be $25. Minimum wage workers account for about 5% of the work force, and if women account for 70% of that, that means 3.5% of female workers would benefit. If the increase was $2/hr (fairly big) that would mean the average would increase by a little more than 7 cents. I suppose the argument could be made that there would be other increases to jobs slightly above minimum wage but I still just don't see significant results. You seem well informed on this topic, and a lot of your responses I ignored responding to because I think you nailed and I have no rebuttal.

So this seems tough. I'm not familiar with the current enforcement level but with something as difficult to accurately ascertain as pay discrimination this might just be an invitation for frivolous law suits that only ends up funneling money to lawyers. Objectively proving pay discrimination for a specific individual can be pretty tough. And regarding equal pay laws, I really don't know how that would help. Because of the way that salary negotiation/raises work there are so many moving parts that how would you accurately determine that someone was discriminating because a new employee was a female or if they didn't negotiate as well or didn't have one or two very important skill sets of another hire? I'm sure there would be some more obvious ones but how often is discrimination obvious versus subtle? For the law to be effective I'm afraid it would nearly require draconian government oversight. I think this is a good idea. I've always found it interesting that corporations want you to tell them your previous salary but they typically aren't going to tell you what they pay current employees at specific positions. They might give a vague range... They want the upperhand in the negotiations and it's a way to ensure they have it. Promoting this culture would be difficult, some firms I'm sure would adopt it but there would be some that wouldn't, and in those cases people should recognize that and steer clear of those organizations. So this I don't think would be efficient or effective. Adding further regulation and laws which is going to create departments and "make work" doesn't seem helpful. And cost is always passed down to the consumer anyway. Further, one size fits all solutions typically don't fit anyone. How are these new regulations going to work for companies with thousands of employees versus a company with 8 employees? And you are again faced with the near impossibility of objectively determining gender pay discrimination on a case by case basis. How can you prove performance discrepancies? And there are other things outside of experience and performance. Some employees work more hours than others even if they are salary. And how are you going to monitor promotions? Will there be an agency that oversees this or will this all be on the honor system? I don't like this at all. Are annual raises going to then by standard as well, no negotiation or difference based upon aptitude or performance or work ethic? Because if they are than it is a fundamentally flawed system, and if it isn't than it defeats the point of not negotiating on the initial salary. So this seems a lot like your second point which for the most parts seems fine. Unless we are talking about instituting an agency for oversight. If this is just a cultural change of corporations to add more transparency to pay, raises, bonuses etc than I don't think it's a bad idea. Other than maternity leave I'm not sure how this is gender related? None of this seems bad, I think it comes down to avoiding organizations that notoriously treat workers poorly though. I don't see how this helps the gender pay gap. Paying people more at the lower end might provide a slight uptick in the gap since women make up the majority on this end of the spectrum, but it will be small and it will IMO miss the point. I think the point, or goal is to encourage, promote and increase the percentage of women in higher paying fields which will also decrease the women in lower paying fields. Hopefully it doesn't come across as me just being a contrarian. Several of the ideas are good, but some just seem to miss the mark IMO. It is a difficult thing to measure accurately and and even more difficult thing to resolve. IMO the best solution is doing what we can as early as we can. Meaning programs in schools that get girls interested in math, science and any other field that maybe traditionally was considered for men. Trying to make the cultural changes at a young age to foster the idea that females do belong in these fields.

I've read an article before, I don't know of this http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133599768/ask-for-a-raise-most-women-hesitate was the same one, but it was the same idea. Men are more likely to ask for raises and more aggressive in salary negotiation and that when women do aggressively negotiate they are more likely to be perceived in a negative way instead of positive way versus men. Also, while the numbers are improving, women make up a small portion of high paying jobs compared to men. For doctors and lawyers, women are about 33% and for engineers, women are about 20%. Women are not going into the higher paying fields proportionally so I think that if there are two males per every female in the higher paying fields, it clearly favors men in likelihood of rasies, promotions going to men. I think that some of it is cultural. There isn't as much emphasis on females getting excited about certain studies at an early age and thus ending up with certain high paying careers. I think some of it is natural too though, and that there isn't perfectly equally interest in all subject by both genders. I think progress is being made though. I think continuing to get females interested in science and math and all studies that perhaps they weren't pushed toward decades ago while young is helping. I don't know how easy it is to quantify the gap and how meaningful some of the stats are, but I think you can't go wrong with trying to present oppurtunity as early as possible to get interested and excited in all fields.

I think the gender pay gap is something that is very difficult to properly measure. Another poster made the point that you have to compare by job description. Also, by corporation. Some companies are notorious for paying more than other companies. Further, you would need to compare by performance. The best performer in the office is probably going to be paid more than your average performer in the office. Then there is years experience, education, specific skills and other potential value to the organization. IMO the data is meaningless if you simply compare all female job holders vs all male job holders. I suspect there are organizations where a "good ole boy" system is in place and the male workers are treated differently and paid better than females. But I also suspect that there are companies and organizations that try to be fair. I just don't know a feasible way to accurately measure the true gap.

I'll condlude with the following, as this discussion continues to get further off topic, more long winded and harder to connect the dots. Whether you can personally come up with stories of what you consider tradition and how that tradition turned out swell has little to do with a system that can objectively and consistently discern good ideas from bad ones and plausible explanations from implausible. Tradition isn't a good method... there are many ugly traditions that are the result of ignorance. Authority isn't a good method... doing something simply because another human being wants you too is dangerous. Herd mentality isn't a good method... if you are surrounded by ignorant people what is the herd going to do? And revelation isn't a good method... bad ideas come to people all the time, with much higher frequency than good ideas. I've stated this adnausem and you apparently don't get it or just want to be argumentative. Is an authority figure going to occasionally command someone to do "the right thing".... of course. Is a tradition going to occasionally be "ok"... of course. Is a herd or a revelation going to occasionally turn out "correct" ... sometimes. But how can you tell when to listen to an authority and when not too? Or do you plan to listen to all authorities, or toss a coin? How do you decide what traditions to follow? Chance and where you were born? Or will you try to use rationality and evidence to steer you? If you aren't able to objectively test and distinquish between good and bad traditions, authorities, herds and revelations than you are directionless, incapable of morality and simply a drone. And finally, defending slavery is a highly questionable path, you can try and backpedal but you directly used the words wise and compassionate to describe slavery. That's on you, not the person pointing it out.

Your own words: First you defended tradition in general as a good reason for belief. Then you specifically defended the tradition of slavery by using the bible, an extremely questionable source of morality to somehow conclude that slavery is wise and compassionate. Offer forth whatever semantical game you like, but you were the one to call slavery wise and compassionate... tell me more about idoicy? And lets not forget your defense of tradition via the diatribe on the breakdown of family values which is leading to an apparent decrease in morality... I suppose as opposed to the morality of owning slaves. It's an amazing example because it points out complete ignorance of doing something "because" without examining what is being done. Really ashame all Germans and Japanese were enslaved and owned by Americans and British for seven years following WWII... I think most people have offered up the obvious anwsers, specifically repeatable evidence and rational examination of said evidence. You just don't get it... Just like your comment on this being a science forum regarding the "authority" of scientist... Relativity isn't a widely supported theory because guys in lab coats had authority and told everyone you better believe it... its due to the incredible predictions made based upon the theory, the supporting evidence and the repeatability of gathering the supporting evidence. The OP was correct, each reason listed is a bad reason for believing. Tradition is a bad reason for believing, in fact it's not a reason (requires thinking) at all. Just because occasionally something that has been done for years and some people that are drones continue and the belief has few negative results doesn't mean that doing something simply because ignorant people did it before you were born is a valid rationale. Authority is a bad reason for believing, and once again it isn't even a reason as it requires no thinking and just means being a drone. Revelation is a bad reason for believing, people have thoughts all the time that turn out to be utter crap. Herd mentality is a terrible reason for believing, and once again is not even a reason as thought is removed from the equation. Regarding nonsense, perhaps claiming slavery was the result of wisdom and compassion falls into that category. Perhaps you could have simply acknowledge that tradition, doing something because ignorant people did it before you, is a bad reason for doing something because you get things like slavery. You instead doubled down, used a ridiculus source (bible) and defended slavery.

Agreed, but this thought experiment included total replication of the body not just brain. Or at least that's what I assumed based on there being two of the original people standing there following replication.

I tend to agree that consciousness is the result of the physical world, matter, more specifically our brain and neural activity. However, "inside their head now", doesn't accurately describe the situation IMO. "You" feel no different after being replicated. "You" are still "inside your head" up until your demise. Likewise, the replicated you feels no different and feels "inside it's original head" too. "You" experience the world through them both, because both are "you". Granted at the point of replication forward the "you's" diverge. And this isn't to say that there is a collective consciousness between the two "you's" where all experiences had individually are shared in some metaphysical way. It's to say that each person feels like the original, feels normal, and continues to experience life as if nothing changed. I don't follow any of this, randomly "landing" in a body, jumping back to the point of replication etc... I mean it's your thought experiment and pie in the sky, so it's anyone's guess but to me that doesn't make sense. If you've replicated a consciousness than there are now two consciousnesses that will experience life as if nothing has changed. That's the way I see it.

Slavery is a tradition, one you have chosen to defend because of an apparent affinity for an ancient book. It's not my problem slavery is an uncomfortable or ugly tradition and one which you would perhaps rather ignore. Regarding emotion, perhaps you have an unhealthy emotional attachment to a book or idealogy? However, what is obvious is that slavery is an excellent example of why doing something simply because "that's what we do" is such a fundamentally flawed paradigm. What? If you are trying to offer examples of where/when tradition is "good" perhaps you could offer a specific one instead of generalities. Of course it would be pointless. The discussion isn't about is there one example, two examples maybe a dozen where doing something just because "that's what we do" has worked out ok; the point is that there needs to be some objective system of critical analysis of beliefs. And tradition isn't it, neither is authority, nor herd mentality nor revelation. Really? I can't speak for most people but that just isn't how I live my life. I actually can't fathom the idea of looking for someone or something to instruct me. I'm an adult, I have my own thoughts, I have my own desires and I am willing to accept responsibility for my own decisions. I thought that was what being an adult was about. Have you read the book? Finding solace, inspiration or morality in those pages seems a stretch. Well unless of course you cherry pick. Which defeats the point of having an authoritative book from which to as you put it, receive instruction. As you are using your own intellect to select which passages you decide are meaningful. Since it would take us off topic I don't see how too much discussion of the bible is pertinent. I believe it is sufficient to say that like authority in general, a presupposed authoritative book is equally a bad reason for belief. Right... that's why science journals don't include experimental data, evidence, explanations.... it's just people talking about how they feel about a theory... So you need to critique the authority... Herd mentality judged by the circumstances... Revelation needs to be carefully considered... That's interesting... none of those can stand on their own they all require some objective analysis... But then older traditions are better than newer ones... Which is just peculiarly as if humanity doesn't learn overtime. Anyway in regards to the OP... it now appears that you are at least conceding that authority, herd mentality, and revelation need some sorta system to measure them since they are unsufficient to stand on their own. Progress...