How does an estimate of effort and working conditions...

allow one to complete part of a calculation of the value of work done?

For example, consider some baskets woven in India. If one batch of baskets was woven during a pleasant, mild summer and the other batch was woven in a different year during a very hot summer by workers who did not have the benefit of air conditioning, then how is the "hot summer batch" of more value to either the consumer or the employer?

That's an example for working conditions and I suspect that it would not be too difficult to think of an example for effort.

There is of course a practical issue. Let us say that in America someone starts a small business and advertises a job offer. The job pays minimum wage and is very clearly described so that it is obviously extremely demanding and also very boring. The job involves the manufacture of frivolous items with no redeeming value other than the fact that some people apparently are expected to buy them.

To get any serious applicants, the employer might need to offer higher wages.

This train of thought suggests something odd. What if, for example, in order to attract enough women to become members of the joint U.N.-African Union force in Darfur so that there are equal numbers of men and women in that force, it would be necessary to offer higher wages to women than to men?

What if, in order to attract men to work as kindergarten teachers so that the number of men doing that work is equal to the number of women doing that work, it were necessary to offer higher wages to male kindergarten teacher than to female kindergarten teachers?

To equalize the numbers, we could be led to consider introducing a wage inequality based on gender. That seems somewhat paradoxical.

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Why would a desire for numerical gender-balance trump other considerations?

surely both wages and counts of people are expressed numerically.

For some situations, or at least some occupations, the "equal numbers of people of each gender" goal is given serious consideration. For example, consider a political party's lists of candidates in voting systems that use some degree of proportional representation. Here the issue is not just the opportunity for men and women to be able to pursue a political vocation without discrimination by gender, but also the impact on those who are governed.

I don't say that the "equal numbers of people" should always trump "equal wages." However, I also see no reason to believe that the exact reverse should always be.

In some countries, there is a deliberate gender disparity in abortions. Spending on education and training for girls may also be significantly lower than spending on education and training for boys. Perhaps disparities between the numbers of men in various occupations and the numbers of women in various occupations contributes to the problem. Surely not all the best paid jobs require regular lifting of heavy loads.

A gender disparity in wages is often spoken of in terms of aggregates rather than in terms of an individual employee. Of course, there are two different issues for the individual employee: wages offered to a job applicant and wages already being paid. Wages already being paid are presumably paid in accordance with the terms of some formal or informal employment agreement and not at the arbitrary discretion of the employer on payday.

A reasonably moderate approach to change would be to focus entirely on the wages offered to job applicants. If there is some change to the law then, as time passes, more and more people will have been hired after that change to the law. An alternative that I do not consider to be moderate is to have lawsuits based on past job offers and past employment agreements that are, in someone's opinion, to be retroactively renegotiated in court under threat that the employer will have to pay fines.

If gender-based wage inequality is to be absolutely prohibited, then the "equal aggregate pay" and "equal numbers of people of each gender" goals seem to pull in opposite directions. For example, if wages for combat soldiers are to be raised regardless of gender in hopes of attracting women to that occupation, then the main beneficiaries of such wage increases would be men. Is there systemic discrimination that causes there to be a big inequality between the number of men in any given occupation and the number of women in that occupation? If there is such systemic discrimination, then should efforts be made to cut it off at its root or to at least reduce its impact regardless of whether or not it is feasible to cut it off at its root?

If we are to pursue a goal of modifying wage rates according to some complicated and unknown formula, then are we to begin by accepting that associated with each occupation is a magic number that specifies the "correct" proportion between the number of men working in that occupation and the number of women working in that occupation?

We can't even get to that point, where women legally are entitled to equal pay for equal jobs. We can't get to the point where women aren't discriminated against in hiring. Some jobs do their interviews with candidates behind a freaking screen, because the industry admits that women won't be given a fair chance at a job if the panel finds out they don't have a penis.

How 'bout we address that before jumping ahead to rationalizations of why maybe in some jobs men outta be paid more than women to do the same work?

Next thing you know, you'll be telling us why maybe white people out to be paid more than black folks to do some jobs.

I have asked a number of questions in this thread. Before enacting laws that will be enforced, don't you think it might be a good idea to figure out some answers?

Do you believe that "equal pay for equal jobs" provides a clear specification of what is to be prohibited? For example, do you see any contrast in that respect between "equal pay for equal jobs" and a rule such as "no driving through red lights"?


That hypothetical would require me to react to some proposal involving ancestry. Do you have such a proposal?

For example, suppose it is discovered that residents of the US who have ancestors who came from the Philippines are statistically more likely than other residents of the US both to work for low wages and to work as nannies.

Would such a discovery be strong evidence that current wage rates for nannies constitute discrimination against Filipinos? Should it be illegal for anyone in the US to hire a nanny at a wage lower than what is needed to ensure that the average wage earned by Filipinos in America is equal to the average wage earned by residents of the US of other ancestry?

Here's a link:
Are gender-neutral calculation of work value and ethnicity-neutral standardized tests possible?

Is that close to doing what you said would be "the next think you know" that I would be doing?

-- please read these recent threads in this forum first:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229x7152

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229x7265

The futility of the effort should become apparent.

This third one, fortunately, got precisely the attention it deserved:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229x7127

under-representation of women? I asked that question in the thread that "got precisely the attention it deserved." Now that you mention it, that is an odd question.

The use of the prefix "under" in the word "under-representation" seems to, unless I am mistaken, include a normative judgment. It seems to insinuate that there is a "correct" proportion for the number of men working in that occupation and the number of women working in that occupation.

Since I created that thread, I have given more thought to the general topic of discrimination associated with hiring decisions and discrimination associated with contractual agreements between employers and employees.

was chronologically the first in that list of three threads. Perhaps I needed to do solitary thinking before composing, on the same general topic, a message that deserved replies.

You referred to a futile effort. That effort would be directed towards achieving what goal?

Do you consider this thread to be almost indistinguishable from the previous threads? Do you wish to claim that this thread merely repeats with a few variations in wording?

I suppose that it is possible that your warning about "the futility of the effort" will dissuade some people from participating in this thread. However, it also seems possible that all such dissuaded people are so easily influenced by your patronizing attitude that they are incapable of exercising independent thought when participating in this thread. Thus, you may be doing both them and me a favor.

Perhaps the Original Post of this thread shouldn't be thought of as anything but a preliminary Original Post.

Ideally, there would be a separate forum for messages that are not yet clear enough. People who are ready, willing, and possibly able to receive information about the failure of their preliminary drafts to express a clear question would post them in the Developing Messages forum (analogous to Developing Countries?). Others would identify specific ambiguities (or multi-guities -- if there's such a word; if you can hold a pencil and write with your right hand, left hand, or right foot, then you aren't merely ambidextrous).

Soon, a person who is interested in knowing in what respects his or her preliminary draft message fails to be clear would use that information to create a revision. Of course, a revision might itself be insufficiently clear, so the process might continue for some time. However, with luck, the process would eventually yield a message that is believed by a number of people to be a clear message. That arguable clear message could be posted as a new Original Thread in a regular (aka Developed Message) forum and spark a meaningful discussion.

So long as all genders and races are given EQUAL opportunity and compensation for work... the end statistical distribution of workforce should not matter. IMO, as long as all applicants are given equal consideration there is no issue. That there are more male engineers but more female teachers is not inherently a problem - especialy a problem that would require controversial wage manipulation to achieve. I think alot of workforce distribution has to do with how our brains are wired. Because when it comes to thinking processes, assimilating information, and perception of circumstances - men and women are most certainly unique.

What's the purpose for the desire to have gender distribution to be equally represented?

At the end of the day, ensuring gender equality in a career field requires infinitely more work then just wages.

An example is teaching where women outnumber men so much that it is a joke up until college level education. While the wages, which are going to decline if Republicans get their way, are bad the real barrier is a cultural one. Men wanting to be around and help children are seen as suspect in a culture that tends to assume pathological nature in men... I.E. if he is he is possibly a child molester. Also his carrier can be more easily annihilated and reputation ruined by mere accusations even if completely false.

Women likewise might not get involved in certain fields simply because of cultural prejudices and assumptions or ill motives placed on someone for having that job. I used the above example because I was recently a attempting to become a teacher and I basically ran into that and warnings from others.

I think ultimately you can only offer equality of opportunity. Not necessarily equality of result.

Begin with reading about all of the methods of job evaluation, including the Hay method and the Position Analysis Questionnaire. Then look for articles examining the validity of pay surveys. Once you understand the basics, you will be off to a good start. Then you may want to explore the cases filed since 1963 under the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act, and related laws.

Can you outline your train of thought as you attempt to answer the questions? Perhaps it will become clear how and why, if that train of thought is used, the research that you propose is necessary. Furthermore, once your outline is available, someone else might be able to outline a different train of thought, that uses less research time, without any loss of quality in the answers obtained.

You will soon see that the questions you have raised have been answered; your questions suggest you don't yet have a basic understanding of pay setting processes in the US. If you are sincere in getting your questions answered, then do the basic research.

It occurs to me that the questions might have been answered by different people with different and conflicting answers.

Learning often requires interactive communication, rather than merely one-way transfer of information. The more there is to be learned, the less plausible it is that research is enough. For example, few people go from the beginning of kindergarten to high school graduation without asking questions and getting answers.