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Halcyon Daze

Top 5 reasons why I Hate women

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Okay raketemensch. It's seems like we're almost speaking different languages and you're right that it's probably best to let the article speak for itself.

But, if there's really something I'm missing here, can someone else please explain it to me? I'm not being facetious. If I'm simply not understanding the paper or that paragraph in particular, I would really like someone to explain it to me. Maybe someone who speaks my language but has not been on my side in this thread would be good...I'm looking at you SYNeR :lol:

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I am not on your side Balzac, I am not on anyone's side :)

This discussion has challenged and thrown much of my thinking on this into flux, and I would like to go back and read the thread in detail when I have time. So far I have not been able to give it much more than cursory attention, but from what I have read I was surprised when racketemensch dismissed your points and claimed to have proven hius point, because I thought your previous post had rather pedantically explained how you thought he had erred. I think the best explanation is that he did not understand your point, but I'm not sure why, maybe he just didn't like it lol.

I know some brilliant feminists who I would love to invite to participate to argue the opposite view to balzac, but I am not comfotable enough with them that I would be happy inviting them to an ethno forum. Has anyone got someone they can invite or debate on this topic between knowledgeable and reasonable participants elsewhere?

I would really like to see some of these MRM/MRA claims put to the test but I lack the requisite knowledge and time to attempt it myself right now.

Edited by chilli
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vad fan?

i thought it was prett clear, chilli.

ballzac argues that wage differentials are due to lifestyle choices

raketemensch argues that lifestyle choices are either only mildly significant or that 'choices' are actually structural pressures.

i think i understood his point, and i think he understood mine, but we disagree on what constitutes a just rationale for wage differences between men and women.

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My main point is that discrimination has not been proven. You can say that women earn 77% of what men do, and say "ha, the other 23% is discrimination, there's your proof". But then a paper will come out that shows that some of this gap shrinks when you control for a certain factor. And then people say, "ha, so there's 12% that is discrimination". But wait, another paper comes out that controls for something else, and it turns out that only 8% is left, and people will say, "ha, there's your discrimination". This has been going on for a long time, and is basically identical to the God of the gaps argument which, if anyone is unfamiliar with it, is when a person claim that we can't explain a certain physical phenomenon, therefore God must have done it. But then when that phenomenon is explained with science, the apologist says "well, here's this other thing we can't explain, God must have done it". In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson:

If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come at the problem.

So, basically, your discrimination is an ever-receding pocket of economic ignorance. Yet today the point is really moot anyway, because there are plenty of peer-reviewed papers today, the findings of which are that the gap can be eliminated completely by controlling for enough variables. If someone is claiming discrimination, then I want to see research that actually shows that some of the gap is due to discrimination, not just that they have failed to account for some amount of the gap.

i think i understood his point, and i think he understood mine, but we disagree on what constitutes a just rationale for wage differences between men and women.

 

I think he was referring to the fact that we can't agree on what the actual paper you quoted is about or what its findings are. Neither of us seem to be able to understand how the other can be reading the same words and getting almost opposite meanings from it.

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fair call ballzac. but jesus christ, read the article the rest of youse and make your own decision rather than debating a point on which i and ballzac clealy disagree on. both i and ballzac have offered to provide it since we were getting into bullshit semantics about it.

sincerely, the raketemensch who is about to post stats on women dying in war opposed to US troops (decided against)

Edited by raketemensch

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sincerely, the racketemensch who is about to post stats on women dying in war opposed to US troops

 

Female civilians, actually.

You might have to provide stats that women are being particularly targetted compared to men. Control for the fact that there may be less men who are civilians, because they have been drafted in to the local militia (thus becoming a more likely target for enemy bullets).

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Actually, Raketemensch, I'm not quite sure why you are so desperate to win this argument. Surely it would be nice to know that there are other factors at play that mean that discrimination against women is in fact, very rare? It makes me feel better. I used to be a hardened feminist, but over time the arguments that explained the other possibilities won me over and, while I believe genuine discrimination by men against women does exist, there is also genuine discrimination by women against men that never gets talked about - and when you try, you get a lot of flak for doing so. This thread has been one of the most open discussions about this area, and it's largely down to Ballzac keeping his cool and being very good about explaining his stats.

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read the article the rest of youse and make your own decision

 

In fact, read as much as you can on the issue. Read the report that was prepared for the U.S. Federal Government in in 2009 that collated the results of 53 peer-reviewed economics papers and found that about 5 percent of the gap was unaccounted for in the controls typically used.

Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous

conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a

multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify

corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be

almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.

 

http://www.consad.co...al%20Report.pdf

and be aware that even though this report was completed almost four years ago, just a week before he was sworn in, Obama continues to use the 77 cents statistic in his propaganda aimed at appeasing a society that has been influenced by a certain dogmatic movement.

Read this article published in the national review, because it is a great summary of this issue and how dogmatic the presidential candidates chose to be in addressing this issue in order not to lose votes:

http://www.nationalr...urchtgott-roth#

Edited by ballzac

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Just heard this on the J's news the other day:

The gender pay gap increased from $2,000 to $5,000 in 2012. Men’s earnings have increased over the year whilst those of women have not.

http://www.wgea.gov.au/Information_Centres/Resource_Centre/Statistics/2013-01-03%20GradStats%20factsheet.pdf

Don't see how this can be generalised away by citing lifestyle choices, since this is about (graduate) entry level wages, not wages over time...

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I thought you were done? :P

I've covered the problems with data like this already, which you haven't addressed, but I'm happy to go over it again.

The most obvious problem is that it is divided by industry. To conclude that the gap is due to discrimination requires the assumption that everyone in the a particular profession does the same work. Notice that the biggest difference is construction, where some jobs involve a lot of danger, hard physical labour, and exposure to the elements. It is not clear whether "architecture and building" includes people working in payroll, administration, etc. I would like to see how these categories were defined, and what individual jobs fit into these categories, but I can guarantee that not all people working in that industry are moving concrete blocks atop high-rise buildings. I knew someone who had a job where they had to abseil from the top of skyskrapers to do repairs and install the lights on spires and stuff, and the pay was incredible.

Next is the definition of "full-time". I could not find an explanation of what is considered full-time, but it is usually anything 35 hours or more. This means that people who knock off at 5 o'clock, on the dot, are put in the same category as people who stay until 9 o'clock to get the job finished. How might this relate to gender? Well, in a family with two working parents, I would not be surprised if it is more often the wife who takes on the duties of collecting the kids from school or soccer practice, while the husband is expected to work harder to help pay off the mortgage. This particular scenario might not be as likely in the case of recent graduates, but these data include anyone under the age of 25, and there would be a large number of these graduates who are married, some of whom will have kids. I'm sure there are hundreds of different possible scenarios that might result from the different choices men and women make that would lead to women choosing jobs where they work fewer hours than their male counterparts. This is also testable, I have not seen such data for new graduates, but this is exactly the case for the average worker. One study I remember showed a difference in full time earnings for doctors (I can't remember the figure, but it was something like 15%), but the average weekly hours for a full time female employee was 40, whereas for men, it was 48. If you doubt the accuracy of this claim, I can look for the study again and post it. If you can find any data to show that this is not the case for recent graduates, feel free to provide it. Also, you may be implying that this is not possibly a factor in starting salaries, but if hours are agreed upon before hiring, or discussed in the interview, this can make a big difference.

There are also choices that can be made at university that affect employability. Picking your electives wisely. Two people may both be doing a degree in engineering, but if one person chooses a class on finger painting, and the other a class on materials science as an elective, it will make a difference as to how employable they are. In many fields there are also research projects you can do as an undergraduate. If a mechanical engineering student designs a new type of engine as part of a research project, they are going to be the type of graduate that employers will value more highly. There may be things as simple as grades, considering that many employers look at your academic record. I don't know which, if any, of these examples depend on gender, but it is undeniable that not all recent graduates are equal, and the differences depend highly on the choices of individuals.

Considering that this is for anyone under the age of 25, there is about a three year period where some people may have worked full-time in the industry they want to work in, while others may have worked at maccas, some may be 21 and not had a break at all, while others spent 3 years on the dole. Some people work part-time during their studies and some don't. Some in the industry they plan to work in as a graduate, and some not. Again, not all graduates are equal.

Another point is that the data you linked to shows that the gender gap is in favour of men in some industries, and in favour of women in others. Now, if this gap is due to discrimination, then your explanation must become much more convoluted, because you must have a 'boys club' that favours men in some sectors, but a 'girls club'? that favours women in others. You say you can't see any other possible explanation for starting salaries being different other than discrimination, so you must also believe that men are heavily discriminated against in the "Earth sciences" and "pharmacy" industries.

In fact, the data you linked to is a summary of the data from another article that is cited. The authors of this article have their own explanations for some of the differences:

over the years, gca research has suggested that overall differences

in median starting salaries between males and females can be

partly explained in terms of the differing enrolment profiles of

male and female students. male respondents have tended to be in

the fields of education more highly ranked according to starting

salary while females have tended to come from the middle ranked

fields. an examination of the fields in the top five ranks in terms

of starting salaries (see Tables 3 and 4; dentistry, optometry, earth

sciences, engineering, and medicine) shows that only 7.6 per cent

of female respondents are within these fields, as opposed to 28.5

per cent of males (with the field of engineering the major factor in

this difference). the fields occupying ranks six to ten (which include

female dominated education and paramedical studies) account for

38.7 per cent of females and 21.1 per cent of males.

While this initial analysis helps to explain part of the overall earnings

difference seen here, there are many factors that interact to produce

observed differences in median starting salaries. When males and

females have studied in the same field, differing employment factors

such as occupation, type and location of employer, or the hours

worked, can also have an effect on earnings. additionally, some

fields of education used in this analysis are aggregations of smaller,

related, but relatively heterogeneous fields, and this can lead to

earnings differences within the aggregated field. a deeper analysis

of the differences between starting salaries for males and females

was undertaken for the report Graduate Salaries 2009 (available for

download from www.graduatecareers.com.au/research).

 

table 1a indicates that 15.1 per cent of

those in full-time employment at the time

of the survey already had that full-time

position early (before 1 may 2011) in their

final year of study. as in previous years,

males were notably more likely than

females to have had their position before 1

may in their final year of study. this figure

can vary across institution type, field of

education and mode of attendance, with

many of these respondents having studied

on a part-time basis.

I haven't read the entire article, but Ctrl+F comes up with no instance of the word "discrimination". And this is the best that YOU could come up with to 'prove' discrimination. And in case you didn't read it the first time, here is the quote from the article cited by the page YOU provided that best contradicts your assertion that it must be discrimination because we are only dealing with starting salaries:

there are many factors that interact to produce

observed differences in median starting salaries. When males and

females have studied in the same field, differing employment factors

such as occupation, type and location of employer, or the hours

worked, can also have an effect on earnings.

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One more point. Note that these data are divided into industry of education, not industry of employment. This means that if two people complete a degree in engineering, but one chooses to work as an engineer, and the other chooses to do data entry for a small company, not necessarily an engineering company, or heck, one might choose to work at Mcdonalds or Safeway, then they will still both be classed as engineering graduates, but their earnings will be significantly different. If you fail to see how this can be influenced by the personal choices of the individuals, then I'm not sure what more I can do to help you understand.

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I don't know exactly what you heard, because I couldn't find anything specifically from JJJ. But I gather it was something like this: http://www.abc.net.a...13/s3664067.htm

The research executive manager of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Carla Harris:

CARLA HARRIS: Currently men are earning an average $55,000 as their starting salary whereas women are only earning $50,000 and that to us in a day and age where this kind of practice really shouldn't exist is a big concern.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Why would it be?

CARLA HARRIS: Look, it's an excellent question and it is a very difficult one to really digest. There is certainly no logical reason as to why we might value a male graduate more than a female graduate however.

So it appears that Carla Harris didn't read the article that her organisation mined the statistics from, or chose to ignore any explanations given, because they had some explanations which I quoted earlier

there are many factors that interact to produce

observed differences in median starting salaries. When males and

females have studied in the same field, differing employment factors

such as occupation, type and location of employer, or the hours

worked, can also have an effect on earnings.

none of which are discrimination. Harris and Trembath then go on to discuss details of the possible reasons, discussing everything with the prior assumption of discrimination. There is no discussion of any other possible factors, and it makes it seem like this 9.1% difference in earnings is solely due to discrimination, ignoring all the evidence that the gap closes until it is statistically insignificant if you control for enough factors. Frankly, I find it embarrassing that stuff like this is considered journalism, and it's this sort of bias that I've been complaining about. But that's pretty standard in the media and in politics. It would be political suicide to mention that there are many factors that influence the gender pay gap and that systemic discrimination has not been shown to be one. And journalists would be inviting hate-male hate-mail, if they aired the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, rather than broadcasting feminist rhetoric.

And Raketemensch, so far I have not really been bothered that you haven't been posting peer-reviewed stuff because none of what you have posted has contradicted my position, but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to start looking at more reliable sources. Peer-reviewed work from a respected journal will have standards that mean there are no throw-away comments. Every assertion will have a reference, and you can check this reference to find out where this information came from and how it is known. When you have something from an organisation called "Workplace Gender Equality Agency" even if there happened to be a line in there saying that the gap is due to discrimination, if it doesn't have a reference to peer-reviewed work that actually shows this, then it's just a baseless assertion from an agency with an agenda.

An example of peer-reviewed work would be something like this: http://onlinelibrary...0471.x/abstract

which had this to say on starting salaries:

While the details

examined also include age, gender, language

spoken at home, country of birth, disability sta-

tus and high school attended, most emphasis

is placed on the impact on starting salaries

of students’ academic performance and their

field of study.

The analyses show that the main determinant

of graduates' starting salaries is the weighted

average mark they achieve at university.

And this to say on gender:

Neither gender nor disability proved to be

significant in this study of graduates from

UWA. Miller and Volker (1987) also report

that there was little evidence of wage discrim-

ination on the basis of sex in the youth labour

market. These findings have the potential to as-

sist in the understanding of the sizable gender

differential reported in the more general studies

of earnings in Australia. Specifically, Mincer

and Polachek (1978) have argued that the siz-

able gender gap is due to inadequate controls

for women’s intermittent labour market activ-

ity. This should not be a factor in the study of

starting salaries.

 

Somehow, I feel, you will read the above quotes as proving that the gender wage gap is due to discrimination :rolleyes:. I also find it interesting that you refuse to address statistics that I posted on the grounds that you don't think statistics are enough to demonstrate anything, and then you go on to post a very simplistic statistic in order to 'prove' your point. You have never addressed the arguments I have given to explain why the gender gap can be explained by personal choices, and then go on to post statistics that can be explained by many of the same factors. Yes, some of the factors are not applicable when looking at starting salaries, but if you read/understood my arguments to begin with, you would have realised that many are. The fact that the WAM received at university has the biggest influence on starting salaries (at least in this study) and you never even considered it as an explanation for why starting salaries might be different for different demographics, suggests to me that you haven't actually looked at much research, and are just looking for things to support your argument and listening to the mainstream media to get your 'facts'.

playingpigeonchess.jpg

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Just heard the headline and thought it was interesting. You've brought up some possible variable which would, if factual, mean that the gender pay gap is due to men being harder workers (longer hours) and more intelligent (better elective choices) or more willing to work more dangerous jobs. These are all just speculations about why the pay gap exists, and none of them can be substantiated in the context of the figures we're discussing. Arguing about this would, again, just me be saying this is evidence of an unfair system, and you saying nope, its evidence of poor choices. Fair enough it is just a news article and more of a broad indication of the pay gap rather than a comprehensive explanation of it, but we've done the peer reviewed stuff already and disagreed on interpretation. I put this up because I'm genuinely interested in your explanations.

I'd also be interested in knowing why females on avg. get higher wages as earth sciences or pharmacy graduates, and it is as much a problem for your idea that its because they're making bad choices in uni and picking up the kids instead of working overtime afterwards, as it is for mine. Peer Reviewed articles like Eric Solberg's "Occupational Assignment, Hiring Discrimination, and the Gender Pay Gap" argues that preference of occupation is a key factor in the wage gap (although he doesn't go into the crowding phenomenon which can be an indication of discrimination in itself, in a similar way to the types of jobs made available to some recent immigrants) but still doesn't deny wage discrimination in the workplace. You're arguing for something which is more or less across the board (with the exceptions noted), but using piecemeal evidence. A lot of women in the workforce aren't university graduates, so a WAM is irrelevant in their lower wages. A lot of employers (depending on field) won't even look at your WAM when you're applying for a job. I would be interested in more information on why the gap exists... From the bits of the article you've posted above it looks like there should be localised reasons for the gender wage gap within different industries, workplaces, regions etc... all within Australia... So what are they? So far we're got university educated women making bad elective choices, scoring lower marks, and having kids that they then need to take care of... surely this can't be all?

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These are all just speculations about why the pay gap exists, and none of them can be substantiated in the context of the figures we're discussing.

 

Nor can discrimination. You presented the figures, and implied that it must be due to discrimination because they are starting salaries. I used those examples to show that different choices can still account for different starting salaries. I wasn't specifically making any claims that I thought the data you provided could be used to test. I was just showing that you can't use a process of elimination to conclude there is discrimination if you don't know what the variables are.

Arguing about this would, again, just me be saying this is evidence of an unfair system, and you saying nope, its evidence of poor choices.

 

Nope. I would be saying it's evidence of a general gender wage gap. There is very little in those figures that can be used to actually conclude a cause of the gender wage gap, so it's not evidence in support of either position, though I do believe it is slightly more consistent with my position than yours. Yet it's being presented in the media as though it is evidence of discrimination:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/gender-pay-gap-widens-for-graduates-20130103-2c718.html

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/gender-pay-gap-widening-as-female-graduate-salaries-stall-222644291.html

http://www.smh.com.au/national/tertiary-education/gender-pay-gap-doubles-in-a-year-20130103-2c78q.html

http://www.watoday.com.au/business/young-women-pay-dearly-for-gender-gap-20130103-2c6m9.html

I didn't see anything in any of the mainstream media articles on this that even mentions any other possible factors. Where is the critical analysis of any of this? It's just indoctrination, and it's the reason so many people cling so strongly to the idea that the gender pay gap is due to discrimination. I don't know of a single study that has looked directly at discrimination on a large scale, and perhaps there's no viable way to do it. It is always inferred from an unexplained residual, and the actual results vary enormously between different studies, but there are plenty that find that this residual accounts for a very small amount.

Why can't we have a little honesty in the media and from 'gender equality' organisations?

I'd also be interested in knowing why females on avg. get higher wages as earth sciences or pharmacy graduates, and it is as much a problem for your idea that its because they're making bad choices in uni and picking up the kids instead of working overtime afterwards, as it is for mine.

 

You keep calling them "bad choices". I refer to them as "different choices". They are only bad choices if you want a certain outcome. If you want to learn to write poetry, then taking a poetry-writing unit as an elective is a good choice. If you want to be paid more in your future career as an engineer, then it is a bad choice. If you want to earn a lot, then working a dangerous job is a good choice. If you want to live longer, then it's a bad choice.

It's not a problem for my position, because when you have a multitude of different causes that interplay, then you will see differences across occupations. It's only a problem if you assume that there is one major cause.

Perhaps women who have/want children are less likely to choose a career in geology or oceanography because they would expect to have to travel more, so the women who do degrees in Earth sciences are less likely to have children than those in other fields. I doubt this is the reason, and I'm not going to bother speculating on other possible reasons, because we have no way to test any hypotheses, but when you have a multitude of combined, and interrelated, forces that influence the choices of individuals, and consequently their starting salaries, it is much easier to see how there may be such different wage gaps for graduates with different degrees, than if you put it all down to gender discrimination.

A lot of women in the workforce aren't university graduates, so a WAM is irrelevant in their lower wages.

 

You're now changing the subject again. You brought up recent university graduates because you thought that personal choices couldn't account for differences in starting salaries among recent graduates. I used the example of WAM (among others) to show that choices and personal attributes can affect starting salaries. If you want to go back to talking about the average wage gap, we can do that too.

A lot of employers (depending on field) won't even look at your WAM when you're applying for a job.

 

The research suggests WAM is a large contributing factor to starting salaries.

From the bits of the article you've posted above it looks like there should be localised reasons for the gender wage gap within different industries, workplaces, regions etc... all within Australia... So what are they?

 

This is where better studies are required. There are a lot of studies out there, but it would be hard to find this specific information that breaks down specifically Australian data, without doing the actual research ourselves.

So far we're got university educated women making bad elective choices, scoring lower marks, and having kids that they then need to take care of?

 

I didn't say this. I gave these as examples of ways in which recent graduates under 25 can have different starting salaries other than due to discrimination. Some of these may depend on gender. Some may not. Some may benefit men. Some may benefit women.

... surely this can't be all?

 

I think there would be a huge number of differences in the choices of men and women that will affect pay generally, and starting salaries specifically. I don't pretend to know what all these factors are. But the next step after publication of these figures should be research that does look at possible causes, rather than presenting the figures in the media as though they are proof of discrimination.

And again, I would like to point out that the organisation that performed the research never mentioned discrimination, but gave some other possible causes. The data was then picked out by the WGEA, and presented to the media as though there was no other possible explanation for the gap other than discrimination.

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Seems that I was somewhat wrong about what the mainstream media is willing to address.

PM Julia Gillard says reports of an increasing gender pay gap are concerning despite claims the statistics weren't portrayed accurately.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) says the gender pay gap for young university graduates more than doubled last year, from $2000 to $5000 a year.

However, Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) on Friday told media the federal government agency had oversimplified the data, resulting in the misrepresentation of gender pay differences and that the gap remained at three per cent.

Ms Gillard on Saturday said she had seen the media reports that said the way in which those statistics were used weren't 100 per cent accurate.

"So I'm going to need to drill down to the very specific statistics here,'' she told ABC News 24.

"But any gender pay gap concerns me, whether it's for graduates or people who have been in the workforce for a long time."

Ms Gillard said her government had already acted to make a difference to gender pay inequality.

"The industrial relations system we have now has a principle at its centre, which is that women and what is viewed as women's work traditionally should not be the subject of lower pay rates," she said.

"We haven't just enacted a bill about it. We've actually put our money where it should be with around a $2 billion investment to deal with the long-term disadvantage that social and community services workers are faced (with), basically, because they tend to be women."

Ms Gillard's comments come after Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) said today that a federal government agency has oversimplified data about graduate pay, resulting in the misrepresentation of gender pay differences.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) said the gender pay gap for young university graduates had more than doubled last year, from $2000 to $5000 a year. However, there was in fact no change and the gap remains at three per cent.

GCA policy and strategy adviser Bruce Guthrie said the agency had read data from its annual Australian Graduate Survey in a "overly simplistic" way.

"The researcher in question has missed some vital paragraphs in this fairly short document which would have explained a lot of the stuff we have had to clarify.

"It does happen. It's happened before, it will happen again with various data sets. People get the wrong handle and think the story is simpler than it actually is," Mr Guthrie said.

Mr Guthrie was concerned the misrepresentation could cloud the thinking of school leavers as they make career choices.

He said a factor that contributed to the misrepresentation was that men tended to be over-represented in fields such as engineering.

"In addition, some of the larger wage gaps are observed in fields with relatively low response numbers, for example dentistry and optometry, which could make them unreliable."

The gender equality agency identified a disparity of $14,000, or 15.7 per cent, between female and male dentistry graduates.

"I think it's really unlikely there is any responsible graduate recruiter in Australia who is paying a different salary to males and females," Mr Guthrie said.

"I don't believe that would be the case."

Mr Guthrie said GCA was entirely supportive of the need for workplace equality and the misreading of the information had painted employers as discriminatory.

The GCA figures that were used are based on the responses of new bachelor-degree graduates younger than 25 in their first full-time employment and do not represent the wider Australian workforce.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/govt-agency-oversimplifed-gender-pay-data-graduate-careers-australia-says/story-e6frf7jo-1226547949451

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All good points, I'm glad we can finally agree on somethings. Yes it is difficult to find evidence of across the board discrimination in terms of the gender pay gap. There are quite a few legal cases evidencing it from the US in R. Gregory's 'Women in the Workplace', but these are individual instances and there is no discussion of the frequency of those cases as applicable to men versus women. That wouldn't be the most reliable study anyhow, since not everyone who is discriminated against with their pay is willing or able to take it to court, especially those in lower-income jobs where discrimination and exploitation of all kinds is much more likely. It's just as difficult to find studies showing that individual choices are responsible for the gap. I haven't been able to turn up papers or books that study the impact of individual choices on the wage gap, except for some that focus on the treatment of pregnancy and child-rearing in the workplace as directly discriminatory (which I'm not concerned about in terms of leave, benefits etc., unless there is discrimination based on the idea that women might get pregnant and find it harder to get work or advance at work because of it). It's especially difficult to find recent studies. There are some from the 90s (for ex. le Grand's "Explaining the male--female wage gap" which discusses the different hourly rate of pay for men and women in the same jobs in Sweden)... but more interestingly, there are some pieces of research (like Antecol's "Why Is There Interethnic Variation in the Gender Wage Gap") which show more clearly discriminatory practices at work in the US regarding wage differentials based on ethnic categories. To me this suggests a continuum of discrimination, but again, this isn't something I can prove from the research I've been able to dig up so far.

If Gillard and the GCA are correct about the data being misused (they don't really explain how, and from the headline that I heard it sounded obvious that they were referring to recent graduates entering the workforce) its pretty shocking that the number crunchers who contributed to the reports didn't pick up on it. If it is just a matter of the numbers not being representative of the entire workforce, eh, but if the samples were of grossly different sizes its pretty suspect.

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There are quite a few legal cases evidencing it from the US in R. Gregory's 'Women in the Workplace', but these are individual instances and there is no discussion of the frequency of those cases as applicable to men versus women.

 

Absolutely. Discrimination is everywhere, and if people are discriminated against in the workplace, they should do their best to get compensated for it. The libertarian argument (which I have a lot of respect for but am not entirely sold on) says that discrimination should not be dealt with legally or politically, because market forces make businesses who discriminate pay a financial penalty. Although some of these claims are testable, it arises from an ideological difference in thinking, and I don't have much interest in discussing the merits of various ideological viewpoints. I'm much more interested in uncovering the facts. When people are well informed, they can make up their own minds based on whatever principles they hold.

If Gillard and the GCA are correct about the data being misused...

 

Gillard did not say the data were misused. She said she had seen the reports that they were. She's still just trying to cover her arse while still pushing the gender discrimination line.

If Gillard and the GCA are correct...its pretty shocking that the number crunchers who contributed to the reports didn't pick up on it.

 

Let's be very clear on this. GCA did the original research. Their "number crunchers" knew exactly what the data meant and what its limitations were. They published a ~10 page report explaining what the numbers mean, and what can, and cannot, be deduced from them. The WGEA then lifted some of the data from the GCA report, either without reading the report, or intentionally ignoring the subtleties and limitations, and then presented these to the media claiming that there is no explanation for these figures other than discrimination.

GCA publishes these reports so that students can be better informed about their academic and career choices. The WGEA has an agenda to push.

(they don't really explain how, and from the headline that I heard it sounded obvious that they were referring to recent graduates entering the workforce)

 

Here's the full report, http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GCA-GradStats-2012_FINAL1.pdf

Edited by ballzac
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Nominating Mark Sawer of todays smh for todays mangina award. :puke::rolleyes:

Edited by Mycot
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Another great video from YesIamJames

 

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Song facts:

One of the most misinterpreted songs ever, the lyrics are a scathing commentary on America's imperialistic attitude at the time of the Vietnam War. Despite a very clear lyric: "American Woman, get away from me," Americans often hear it is a patriotic ode and a tribute to American women. The Guess Who are Canadian.

Edited by Spine Collector
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Er, It's not a Lenny Kravitz song, so you really should link to the original recording if you are commenting on the content of the track.

Born in the USA was similarly misinterpereted by americans, in that instance as a patriotic chant, where it actually protests against the treatment of veterans living in shame and without support.

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A fair amount of posts here show that women do not get paid less than men because of discrimination which is one of the cornerstones of feminist ideology.

This greatt vid lays it out in terms really easy to understand. Not saying that Balzac hasn't done a great job discussing wage differences. :)

 

 

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She would be more convincing if we could see her cleavage. :innocent_n:

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A fair amount of posts here show that women do not get paid less than men because of discrimination which is one of the cornerstones of feminist ideology.

This greatt vid lays it out in terms really easy to understand. Not saying that Balzac hasn't done a great job discussing wage differences. :)

 

 

The main reason I didn't post her vid is because she's a hardcore libertarian, and I was concerned of an association fallacy popping up, where people might watch her other vids and then claim that I must be against public health-care too if I agree with her wage gap videos too. The big difference, though, is that one is an ideological difference (property rights versus the right to health-care) and the other is a testable statement of fact (that no substantial part of the wage gap is due to discrimination).

One thing I think people should consider, is the number of black people who have joined the KKK (one that I'm aware of), the number of Jews who have joined a Nazi party, and the number of women who are actively involved in the men's right's movement, or are vehemently opposed to feminism (many, many, many). This, in itself, should give pause for thought to anyone who thinks that men's rights, or opposition to feminism, is synonymous with misogyny.

It's unfortunate that men cannot express these opinions without being labelled a misogynist or a chauvinist. I predicted that early on in the thread, and as expected, that has been one result of me presenting arguments and providing facts to back them up. But, it is great that there are so many women who are willing to stand up for what's right rather than selfishly taking advantage of a movement that would unfairly benefit them.

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To be devil's advocate, while she is right, why should teaching and social welfare careers pay less than engineering?

Edited by whitewind

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