Gender Pay Gap - Not Actually that Big?

[Loren Pechtel]

Sorry, Ron, but you're clearly trying very hard to miss the point of this thread or see the significance of the research presented in the OP's article.

Too tied up in some weird word game it seems.

Whatever the case, I personally haven't the time to set you straight. Best of luck; I hope others are interested in a discussion on this topic because I find it interesting.

No, I am trying hard to actually apply my expertise in Multi-variate analytic techniques to show why all efforts in the thread to draw conclusions about the existence of gender discrimination from the OP research are scientifically invalid nonsense.

I realize that to someone with no grasp of what such analyses really are, my analyses may sound like "word games", but that is your problem. These are inherently complex issues and it isn't my job to make up for your lack of education.

I don't think you actually understood your statistics classes.

What I see is that you're determined to prove discrimination by cherry-picking the logic that shows it and ignoring the logic that disproves it.

 

[JonA]

No, I am trying hard to actually apply my expertise in Multi-variate analytic techniques

To a man with a hammer...

...to show why all efforts in the thread to draw conclusions about the existence of gender discrimination from the OP research are scientifically invalid nonsense.

The OP doesn't claim what you think it claims.

I realize that to someone with no grasp of what such analyses really are, my analyses may sound like "word games", but that is your problem. These are inherently complex issues and it isn't my job to make up for your lack of education.

I get that you love your little smarts, but the crap you're talking about has no relevancy here.

Now I'd like to have a meaningful discussion on this, so I am going to start reporting posts that are doing nothing more than derailing my thread with childish attempts to show off irrelevant knowledge.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Now I'd like to have a meaningful discussion on this, so I am going to start reporting posts that are doing nothing more than derailing my thread with childish attempts to show off irrelevant knowledge about women giving blowjobs to get promotions when men can't.

FIFY.

- - - Updated - - -

Interesting study abstract:

Prior research has suggested that gender differences in physicians’ salaries can be accounted for by the tendency of women to enter primary care fields and work fewer hours. However, in examining starting salaries by gender of physicians leaving residency programs in New York State during 1999–2008, we found a significant gender gap that cannot be explained by specialty choice, practice setting, work hours, or other characteristics. The unexplained trend toward diverging salaries appears to be a recent development that is growing over time. In 2008, male physicians newly trained in New York State made on average $16,819 more than newly trained female physicians, compared to a $3,600 difference in 1999.

*crickets*

 

[Trausti]

Interesting study abstract:

Prior research has suggested that gender differences in physicians’ salaries can be accounted for by the tendency of women to enter primary care fields and work fewer hours. However, in examining starting salaries by gender of physicians leaving residency programs in New York State during 1999–2008, we found a significant gender gap that cannot be explained by specialty choice, practice setting, work hours, or other characteristics. The unexplained trend toward diverging salaries appears to be a recent development that is growing over time. In 2008, male physicians newly trained in New York State made on average $16,819 more than newly trained female physicians, compared to a $3,600 difference in 1999.

*crickets*

And the study goes on to say . . .

Discrimination
Given that rapid changes in family status probably did not drive our findings, one hypothesis is that women face gender discrimination in the physician labor market in spite of the evolving role of women in the physician workforce.12,13,15 Although this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved based on our data, it would be difficult to believe that discrimination, after a period of quiescence, has actually been on the rise in recent years. Moreover, our results indicate a trend toward diverging salaries not only in the traditionally male-dominated subspecialty fields, which experienced an influx of women in our sample, but also in primary care fields.

Unobserved Aspects Of Female Physicians’ Jobs
Given that the trend toward diverging salaries appears to affect female physicians regardless of specialty, an alternative explanation focuses on the unobserved aspects of jobs taken by women. It is possible that the continued influx of women into medicine has reached a tipping point, and physician practices may now be offering greater flexibility and family-friendly attributes that are more appealing to female practitioners but that come at the price of commensurately lower pay.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Interesting study abstract:

Prior research has suggested that gender differences in physicians’ salaries can be accounted for by the tendency of women to enter primary care fields and work fewer hours. However, in examining starting salaries by gender of physicians leaving residency programs in New York State during 1999–2008, we found a significant gender gap that cannot be explained by specialty choice, practice setting, work hours, or other characteristics. The unexplained trend toward diverging salaries appears to be a recent development that is growing over time. In 2008, male physicians newly trained in New York State made on average $16,819 more than newly trained female physicians, compared to a $3,600 difference in 1999.

*crickets*

And the study goes on to say . . .

Discrimination
Given that rapid changes in family status probably did not drive our findings, one hypothesis is that women face gender discrimination in the physician labor market in spite of the evolving role of women in the physician workforce.12,13,15 Although this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved based on our data, it would be difficult to believe that discrimination, after a period of quiescence, has actually been on the rise in recent years. Moreover, our results indicate a trend toward diverging salaries not only in the traditionally male-dominated subspecialty fields, which experienced an influx of women in our sample, but also in primary care fields.

Unobserved Aspects Of Female Physicians’ Jobs
Given that the trend toward diverging salaries appears to affect female physicians regardless of specialty, an alternative explanation focuses on the unobserved aspects of jobs taken by women. It is possible that the continued influx of women into medicine has reached a tipping point, and physician practices may now be offering greater flexibility and family-friendly attributes that are more appealing to female practitioners but that come at the price of commensurately lower pay.

...which is all tested or not?

 

[Trausti]

...which is all tested or not?

Dunno. But the authors of the study you cited ruled out discrimination.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

...which is all tested or not?

Dunno. But the authors of the study you cited ruled out discrimination.

They said it was difficult to believe. I frankly don't care too much about beliefs since I care more about numbers.

 

[Metaphor]

This doesn't get to the heart of anything because you've made assumptions that I've made assumptions that I haven't made.

I understand multiple regression in the social sciences. I've taught it to university undergraduates. I understand what shared variability is, exogenous and endogenous variables and reciprocal causation. I understand that a correlation of .3 between x and y means x and y 'explain' the same amount of variability in the other variable, and that 'explain' is a term of convenience.

If you understand all that, then you understand that the OP analysis have no implications for whether gender is a causal factor on pay.
IF you don't realize that, then your ideological faith about this issue is undermining your ability to apply your own knowledge to understanding what the data actually imply and what they do not.

IF you understand what you claim then you know that all of the claims made about the OP results showing evidence against gender discrimination in this thread are identical to claiming that my example results "show evidence against smoking causing cancer", or that the smoking effect "disappers once you control for medical bills", or that "the lung cancer gap between smokers and non-smokers is not that big".

BTW, I teach multi-variate analyses and causal path-modelling in the social sciences to graduate students, and I use these methods in my work and review research using them. I know that most people who use them and many who teach them don't know what the hell they are doing and misuse and misrepresent what their results actually allow in terms of inferences. I know that anyone who makes or agrees with the thread title or any claims that the results support the "control" variables as being the real causes rather than gender has only just enough superficial knowledge of these methods to be able to abuse them.

The problem I have is with your language. For example, every employer in the world 'discriminates' against a person who does not work for them by not paying them any wages or salaries whatsoever, and my employer 'discriminates' between the big boss (who gets 8x my salary) and me.

In the specific context of the gender pay gap, the use of the term 'discrimination' speaks to a much narrower concept: conscious and unconscious bias against women qua women, by employers, that results in lower pay for work of equal value. To use the wider meaning of 'discrimination' in the context of the gender pay gap is misleading.

(Also, you've made the implicit assumption that the final meaningful step in the model is 'employer discrimination' -- that is, the employer decides how much she will pay her employees. But one could just as easily argue that individuals decide their own salaries by negotiation or that it is reciprocally determined.)

 

[Trausti]

Dunno. But the authors of the study you cited ruled out discrimination.

They said it was difficult to believe. I frankly don't care too much about beliefs since I care more about numbers.

Eh? But numbers themselves don't show cause. Is the reason women greatly outnumber men in publishing proof of discrimination against men? I mean, look at the numbers!!!

 

[JonA]

Isn't the problem is that we are relying on an argument from authority and we have to assume that the people who adjusted the values did it right? Are the numbers and the specific tables available for anybody to use?

An interesting notion. Worth looking into.

Have you?

I'm at work on my phone now.

 

[JonA]

In the specific context of the gender pay gap, the use of the term 'discrimination' speaks to a much narrower concept: conscious and unconscious bias against women qua women, by employers, that results in lower pay for work of equal value. To use the wider meaning of 'discrimination' in the context of the gender pay gap is misleading.

It goes beyond that. The argument Ron's making about causality is irrelevant. We know sexism isn't causing a gap in payment between men and women. We know it isn't being caused by the misalignment of the planets. We know the IPU has no say in it either.

We also know it isn't causing anything.

How do we know all this?

Because said gap doesn't exist and things that don't exist neither have causes nor are causes.

Whatever is causing women to have smaller numbers on their 1040s, it cannot be the result of unequal pay for equal work because that scenario doesn't exist.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

They said it was difficult to believe. I frankly don't care too much about beliefs since I care more about numbers.

Eh? But numbers themselves don't show cause.

No they don't.

Is the reason women greatly outnumber men in publishing proof of discrimination against men? I mean, look at the numbers!!!

No, those numbers do not prove causality.