Gender Factor in Tech (2016 Dice Report)
March 3, 2016 12:37 PM Subscribe
In its March 2016 Report, Dice states that "Gender plays no role in compensation for technology professionals"
It’s clear that, in many ways, men and women in technology share the same concerns, receive bonuses, and are satisfied with their compensation. But employers are offering women more options like flexible work hours or the ability to telecommute versus men who are more offered compensation as a motivator. Whether this is based on conversations women are having with their managers or something else is unknown.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Seems like we've been around this block a lot and this short article is maybe not the greatest jumping off point for another go-round. -- LobsterMitten
Men who ask for flexible work hours or telecommuting options generally get it, and are not being docked pay for it. Just sayin'.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:44 PM on March 3 [11 favorites]
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:44 PM on March 3 [11 favorites]
Did they also conclude that pro wrestling is real as well? I cannot figure how they can conclude that assessment.
Oh, and asking about compensation satisfaction - that's a horrible metric that needs to die, considering how deeply it's tied to societal norms.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:44 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Oh, and asking about compensation satisfaction - that's a horrible metric that needs to die, considering how deeply it's tied to societal norms.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:44 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Men who ask for flexible work hours or telecommuting options generally get it, and are not being docked pay for it. Just sayin'.
You're just sayin', but is there any evidence to back that up?
That is, is there evidence that when men ask for telecommuting options or flexible hours they receive them without any impact on compensation while this is not true for women?
I think this thread would be a lot better served if people tried to bring numbers and evidence into it as the OP article does, rather than saying what their gut tells them or they think must be true. Even personal anecdotes are less helpful.
Not attacking, genuinely curious if you have information on this.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:48 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
You're just sayin', but is there any evidence to back that up?
That is, is there evidence that when men ask for telecommuting options or flexible hours they receive them without any impact on compensation while this is not true for women?
I think this thread would be a lot better served if people tried to bring numbers and evidence into it as the OP article does, rather than saying what their gut tells them or they think must be true. Even personal anecdotes are less helpful.
Not attacking, genuinely curious if you have information on this.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:48 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Women get paid less for the privilege of having to bear the brunt of child-raising, home care, and emotional labour?
Totes fair. Society is perfect.
posted by mayonnaises at 12:48 PM on March 3 [9 favorites]
Totes fair. Society is perfect.
posted by mayonnaises at 12:48 PM on March 3 [9 favorites]
If you read their previous report, linked in TFA, they find a "position gap," wherein women just happen to be employed at lower paying positions on average (but within each position they do not find a compensation gap). Fine, if you want to phrase it that way, but jumping from that to the statement "gender plays no role in compensation for technology professionals" is disingenuous at best.
posted by Behemoth at 12:48 PM on March 3 [14 favorites]
posted by Behemoth at 12:48 PM on March 3 [14 favorites]
(I should also say that my past jobs have all been at places with strict pay grades so my real-world experience is probably slightly skewed.)
posted by stoneandstar at 12:49 PM on March 3
posted by stoneandstar at 12:49 PM on March 3
Fine, if you want to phrase it that way, but jumping from that to the statement "gender plays no role in compensation for technology professionals" is disingenuous at best.
Yeah, trying to say "there is no issue with compensation and gender" when you have identified that there is a gap in the one element that most effects compensation is a rather bald faced lie. Furthermore, that lie then distorts everything else.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:54 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Yeah, trying to say "there is no issue with compensation and gender" when you have identified that there is a gap in the one element that most effects compensation is a rather bald faced lie. Furthermore, that lie then distorts everything else.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:54 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
I think this thread would be a lot better served if people tried to bring numbers and evidence into it as the OP article does, rather than saying what their gut tells them or they think must be true. Even personal anecdotes are less helpful.
I do see where you're coming from, but I have an instinct that looking at "numbers and evidence" presents a less holistic or representative picture than it might seem at first. In fact, I think to draw the conclusion that the article did is a little bonkers and seems like news only because it leaves a lot of factors out. And those factors are pretty darn sneaky and hard to see, but that doesn't mean they're not all over the damn place.
posted by theefixedstars at 12:55 PM on March 3
I do see where you're coming from, but I have an instinct that looking at "numbers and evidence" presents a less holistic or representative picture than it might seem at first. In fact, I think to draw the conclusion that the article did is a little bonkers and seems like news only because it leaves a lot of factors out. And those factors are pretty darn sneaky and hard to see, but that doesn't mean they're not all over the damn place.
posted by theefixedstars at 12:55 PM on March 3
Wow, clickbait title much? A "position gap" is a compensation gap.
posted by town of cats at 12:57 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
posted by town of cats at 12:57 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
I read this earlier and thought about posting it but it made me angry. The title is click-bait and the article just hand-waves that women are a few rungs down the ladder, but 'hey they make as much on each rung' as if we're all done here. Oh and also, they want to work from home and we let them, so they're happy, right??
I'm so happy to work for the government where pay and benefits are so over regulated there is much less of a gap. We also have a much more diverse group here than I've seen anywhere else I've worked in IT.
Also, the article which I read at this link a few hours ago had a line which was "Women don't care about money as much as men." That's from memory but it's very close to the actual line which is now gone. As are the MANY comments screaming about that line.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:58 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]
I'm so happy to work for the government where pay and benefits are so over regulated there is much less of a gap. We also have a much more diverse group here than I've seen anywhere else I've worked in IT.
Also, the article which I read at this link a few hours ago had a line which was "Women don't care about money as much as men." That's from memory but it's very close to the actual line which is now gone. As are the MANY comments screaming about that line.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:58 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]
...they find a "position gap," wherein women just happen to be employed at lower paying positions on average (but within each position they do not find a compensation gap)...And this is a major problem, because anybody putting a moment's thought into the topic knows pretty well that this doesn't "just happen." In the tech sector, there sure is a strong gender imbalance among who gets offers for (and thus hired on as) "Senior/Lead X" versus "Mid-Level X" versus "Entry-Level X", as well as who gets promoted between those roles, and it doesn't often track the actual status of who is best-qualified.
posted by mystyk at 12:58 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]
Out of curiosity, does anyone know of a study of pay-gaps that accounts for gender-disparity in the workforce, and how they figured that into their pay-gap calculations?
Because even if you pay women in your company exactly the same as men, if only twenty to thirty percent of your employees are female, I would call that a "pay gap".
posted by mayonnaises at 12:58 PM on March 3
Because even if you pay women in your company exactly the same as men, if only twenty to thirty percent of your employees are female, I would call that a "pay gap".
posted by mayonnaises at 12:58 PM on March 3
"Hi. Good news! I'm going to make a huge, controversial, and somewhat condescending claim. I have numbers to back this up, but I'm not going to show them to you. I'll tell you about a couple of them, which are completely contrary to my thesis, but you'll post this shit everywhere anyway, because if the past few months have taught me anything it's that America is always willing to go to bat for a huge fucking clown. That clown is me! Good night."
posted by phooky at 1:01 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
posted by phooky at 1:01 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
This is like the thing I see pop up on Facebook every now and then claiming that there isn't really a wage gap because men are more likely to die at work. You're not even wrong at that point, you're just... orthogonal.
posted by Etrigan at 1:03 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 1:03 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Clinging to the Wreckage, you might be thinking of this: cash just doesn’t mean as much to women as it does to men, from the IEEE Spectrum article about it.
I personally think the article headline gets it wrong, and as other folks are commenting, the issue is in broader societal norms and incentives around gender roles.
posted by onalark at 1:05 PM on March 3
I personally think the article headline gets it wrong, and as other folks are commenting, the issue is in broader societal norms and incentives around gender roles.
posted by onalark at 1:05 PM on March 3
Sangermaine: “I think this thread would be a lot better served if people tried to bring numbers and evidence into it as the OP article does, rather than saying what their gut tells them or they think must be true. Even personal anecdotes are less helpful.”
Where are the verifiable "numbers and evidence"? All I see is some back-of-the-envelope stuff from an employment agency looking to score by sucking in job-hunters.
Seriously, it's a terrible article that draws vague conclusions that tend toward the kind of blithering injustice corporations who are in a business are likely to proffer in such pieces. This is marketing, not data. It's worth about as much as actual information about employment as those Match.com surveys are worth as psychiatric test data.
And on top of that, it makes the exact same bullshit argument that people on the "there are plenty of women in tech, shut up about it!" side love to make: it claims that differences in compensation are not actually differences in compensation if we're talking about people in different jobs. Which is hogwash.
posted by koeselitz at 1:07 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Where are the verifiable "numbers and evidence"? All I see is some back-of-the-envelope stuff from an employment agency looking to score by sucking in job-hunters.
Seriously, it's a terrible article that draws vague conclusions that tend toward the kind of blithering injustice corporations who are in a business are likely to proffer in such pieces. This is marketing, not data. It's worth about as much as actual information about employment as those Match.com surveys are worth as psychiatric test data.
And on top of that, it makes the exact same bullshit argument that people on the "there are plenty of women in tech, shut up about it!" side love to make: it claims that differences in compensation are not actually differences in compensation if we're talking about people in different jobs. Which is hogwash.
posted by koeselitz at 1:07 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
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It did make me realize that in my last two technology offices, there have been far more women who telecommute, and I have pretty much no doubt this is due to ambient sexism in society (i.e. women move for their husbands or sacrifice career to stay home with kids more often*).
I do know one guy who telecommutes and works from home but he also has a stay at home wife. It's pretty much so they can both live in the country, near his family.
*Not blaming those women, someone has to do it. I've often thought of flexibility in tech to be a major bonus if I ever have kids or if my academic boyfriend gets an appointment somewhere. It would just be nice if women didn't assume they will have do those things, and men didn't enter into relationships and careers assuming they can ignore them.
posted by stoneandstar at 12:44 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]