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From: fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics,net.social
Subject: Discrimination against women and statistics
Message-ID: <8204@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Jun-85 16:30:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8204
Posted: Sat Jun 15 16:30:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Jun-85 01:20:50 EDT
References: <482@ttidcc.UUCP> <8203@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 60
Xref: watmath net.women:5846 net.politics:9432 net.social:664
Summary: Using statistical tests to show discrimination is a lot of hooey

From Jennifer Roback, an economist at Yale, commenting on the "59c"
button popular among feminists during the 1984 election: (This
button was intended to symbolize the fact that women make 59 cents
for every dollar that men make).

"Actually, many of the factors that contribute to the earnings gap are the
result of personal choices made by women themselves, not decisions thrust
on them by bosses.  The most important example is marriage."

"These differences between married women and single women (and between
married women and men, for that matter) contribute dramatically to
reducing the earnings of married women.  Thus we find, in a comparison of
the earnings of never-married women and those of never-married men, that
the women's earnings in 1980 were 89 percent of men's.  This figure has
been essentially unchanged since the 1960 census.  So if one is looking
for a "culprit" for the earnings gap, it is far more plausible to pin the
blame on *marital status* than on *gender*."

"...so there are a number of differences between men and women for their
earnings differences.  Taken altogether, these very reasonable and
understandable factors cannot, it is true, account for the entire earnings
gap.  But when the gap *is* corrected for these factors, it is not 59%
but more like 66-87%, depending on the study."

"...common sense tells us that personality makes a huge difference to a
person's career success.  Ambition, aggressiveness, willingness to take
risks, ability to get along with and motivate others, commitment to the
job, willingness to assume responsibility--all of these factors contribute
to higher wages...But none of these factors can be measured, and the
residual earnings differences could just as easily be due to differences
in these factors as well as to discrimination.  The point is that we
cannot distinguish discrimination from these other, unmeasurable factors."

"...Clearly, neither feminist fund raisers nor the average well-informed
citizen knows this stunning fact: ONLY 40% OF THE EARNINGS OF WHITE MEN
CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY MEASURABLE FACTORS.  That is, A FULL 60% OF THE
DIFFERENCES IN EARNINGS AMONG THEM CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY ANYTHING WE CAN
MEASURE (emphasis mine)...This is why we cannot rule out the possibility
that the entire earnings gap between women and men is due to real personal
productivity differences that cannot be measured.  The upshot is that THE
PRESENCE OF DISCRIMINATION CAN NEITHER BE PROVEN OR DISPROVEN WITH
STATISTICAL TESTS."


"...so the 59c button ... is a symbol of the faith that much of the women's
movement places in government intervention as a solution to women's
problems.  Unfortunately for that faith, many women are liberating
themselves without the help of the law.  THeyy are finding their own path
through the maze of the world of work and devising their own way to
balance all of their financial, personal, and emotional needs.  And the
movement's loss is the individual's gain; for many of the problems that
some women face today will best be solved by the individuals themselves
and not by government action."


Thought I'd throw this in to the AA debate.

--Barry
-- 
Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley