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Challenge HN: Show your company doesn't contribute to the male/female pay gap.

11 points| bluehat | 13 years ago | reply

There is a pay gap between men and women in computer programming and software engineering. Women who are classified as "Software Developers" on average make 86 cents for every dollar their male peers make, and women classified as "Programmers" on average make 93 cents on every dollar their male peers make. Here is the data straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm and again in a nice little screenshot http://imgur.com/vMoOU

This is a challenge to companies which hire either programmers or software engineers to release statistics proving that they treat men and women equally. I understand pay-gap is not the end-all-be-all yardstick of equality so you can break down the statistics by seniority, experience, or any other metrics you like.

The idea is to compile a list of companies which do prioritize treating people equally so that employees can make informed decisions about where they would like to work.

13 comments

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[+] HedgeMage|13 years ago|reply
Companies' employment practices aren't the problem, posts like this are.

When a man isn't making as much money as his peers, he's told to compete: improve his skills, negotiate harder, rack up some accomplishments. When a woman isn't making as much money as her peers, everyone starts talking about HR policies and the pay gap.

It makes women soft. Focusing on women as a class pressures us not to compete as individuals. Those of us who ignore the pay gap and "women in tech" and other distractions, instead choosing to improve ourselves, negotiate for what we want, and show off our abilities make money just fine.

Quit whining and start doing.

[+] bluehat|13 years ago|reply
On the individual level, you are correct. However, nationally significant statistical difference, that might indicate a problem. Furthermore, salaries are whatever the market rate is, and few women have any way of knowing they are or are not making less than their male peers.
[+] anovikov|13 years ago|reply
I guess that there is no 'discrimination' at all here (7-14% difference is too small to be conscious discrimination). The pay gap must be fully explained by the maternity leaves resulting in skills/experience gaps. Take the girls' salaries before their first maternity leave and i bet you will get same or higher salaries than guys' of the same age.

I hire guys and girls, and i usually find girls to be more picky about choosing an employer, and demanding a higher pay, and usually worth it (i don't remember a guy working on a Friday night, girls routinely do that).

[+] bluehat|13 years ago|reply
Why does discrimination have to be conscious to exist?
[+] zeethrow|13 years ago|reply
As a hiring manager for IT, I met two women whose resume qualified; one of them was going to college and so needed a very flexible schedule which the position couldn't do (I wanted to make it work but couldn't) and the other I hired. In both cases their pay would have been higher paid than their male counterparts simply because of the position I was hiring for at the time.

However because of lingering social dynamics and the impoliteness to discuss salaries, I worry that they might not have realized this. It's easy to think you're being discriminated against when you don't have all the facts.

But anyway, there's my data point. Women higher paid than men in my hiring experience, just by chance.

[+] bluehat|13 years ago|reply
So in small companies this stuff is hard, but larger datasets are easier to make anonymous. For example, you could release data about how many women were paid more than their male peers across many departments, and how many were paid less, and not specify which departments are which. Luckily for you, if you are a hiring manager for just IT, the company is probably large enough to publish anonymous data.

The goal here is to have an actionable list on which companies statistically are likely to give equal pay, and which are not.

[+] ig1|13 years ago|reply
The single biggest factor controlling developer salaries is location (more so than seniority, area of expertise, etc.), unless you control for that than any kind of salary comparison is meaningless.
[+] bluehat|13 years ago|reply
However, unless there are some areas of the country with disproportionally more female developers, this should balance out.