I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age)

I have found on Reddit and here that the top comments are almost always against the original article if there is any way to view the conclusion differently.

I do not believe it is a systematic problem, it allows you to quickly get a hold of two conflicting viewpoints quickly.

I took the top comment to be "It is extremely difficult to mitigate factors when it comes to the gender gap, especially lost work time due to child care", he then quoted a study where a differential comparison saw at least one example of the opposite gender inequality.

Additionally the gender gap is rooted in cultural reasons, so comparing different countries is different. Specifically the existence of a certain gender gap in Germany does not mean such a gap exists in the US.

You make good points. I second the last thing you brought up: Germany has one of the worst gender pay gaps in Europe, so that the situation in the US is most likely better than here, not worse.

However, I'd like to point out that my criticism was not aimed at the top comment but at many of the comments here in "the middle". What shocked me was not so much that people hold a view opposed to mine, but the dismissive tone of some posts.

> [...] why do so many people here immediately snap into backlash mode without considering the possibility that this could actually be an existing pay bias?

<sarcasm>

Because sexism and bigotry are properties of evil, despicable people, who aren't anything like us.

We're cool progressive techno-optimists. We're so smart we couldn't possibly be bigoted. We're the new establishment.

</sarcasm>

I find it funny that you would read me like that.

Among my colleagues, I'm that one guy who, in his private life, is friends with "regular" people, who chooses to live in a rural area and who speaks with his native hillbilly accent.

I'm aware that everybody has biases and preconceptions. I was taught to be aware of mine, which I think I am (and boy, they're something). But nonetheless, the dismissive tone of (some parts of) the conversation disappointed me and I think, given the standards to which HN holds itself, rightfully so.

I don't think that this is aimed at you. JabavuAdams suggests that "I couldn't possibly be sexist because I'm not a bad person" is the reason that many commenters are dismissive of the idea that there may be sexism in an establishment to which they contribute.

Oh. That indeed also makes sense. Thank you for pointing it out. It seems that I completely misinterpreted his comment.

I live in Germany and tried to dig into the data a bit, and so far I am not convinced. It is very difficult to get precise data, for starters. I am simply sceptic about the "everything is the same" claim - in many cases, how many instances of women and men with the exact same job, qualification and work hours did they even find? For example they claim female software developers earn less on average, but in 13 years working as a software developer, I have encountered only very, very few female software developers. I am highly doubtful that it is even possible to create a meaningful statistic here. And there might be still more factors at work, such as willingness to relocate or preference for certain branches. If male software developers tend to work for car companies, banks or telcos and female software developers tend to work for ad agencies or create web sites for mom and pos's grocery store (just made up, I have no idea), it could make a difference for example. But as I said, it is very difficult to get that kind of data.

In the media I have seen worse offenses, for example the claim that female teachers earn less than male teachers, without mentioning that there are different kinds of schools (more women tend to work at elementary schools vs men working at high schools) - most teachers get a fixed salary determined by the government, so gender discrimination is next to impossible (there certainly is no government rule that female teachers earn less than male teachers). Or physicians, without mentioning that there are different branches of medicine and surgeons might have a harder job than pediatricians.

What strikes me is that none of those wage gap studies ever seems to question why the wage gap exists. For example they could ask employers or even the employees themselves. It seems they just want to prove discrimination and stop once they have favorable data.

Then why hire men at all? If women earn less over a greater period of time that may offset the benefit cost.

Because children. My wife and I split the fourteen months of paternity leave between us and believe me, that stuff is rough. I can tell you from that experience, staying at home for a few months and then working while taking care of a small child changes your view on things and the view that others have of you. For one, you grow up to the point where you're not willing to accept all of the BS that work throws at you. Another thing is that you have "nothing to show" for a prolonged period of time and continue to underperform due to stress and lack of sleep.

Add to that the additional issues that women have due to the bodily changes they go through and you have a serious incentive to avoid hiring women. This is of course made worse by the implicit assumption that women usually do all the taking care of children, thus becoming even worse "performers" after having them.

On a side note: I was incredibly lucky to have a supportive employer that gave me the space necessary to take care of a child without getting completely derailed at work.

You're now contradicting your assertion of "IF EVERYTHING IS THE SAME". Clearly everything isn't the same if one person is likely to start working 45+ hours per week when having a child(provider/father) and the other person is more likely to start working part-time when having a child(care-taker/mother). Over-time has an opportunity cost attached to it.

So you have an explanation why women earn less (which you believe - not sure if that is the correct one), but you still believe in discrimination? How does that add up?

Because the situation in its totality is discriminating. On one hand, society expects women to take care of children. On the other hand, taking care of children is a heavy broadside against ones career.

And please don't use the biology excuse. In Slovenia and Poland, the pay gap is much less than in Germany[1], probably due to a different child care culture.

The perverse thing about this is that many young women believe that their chances are the same as ours (you know, now that we have equal rights and everything). In reality, they are not treated as our equals.

On a side note: A woman gets paid less even if she will never have children. This is discrimination.

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-pay-gap/s...

Well personally (as a dad) I am not convinced that society expects women to take care of children, as a "special burden". Rather, I suspect it is actually a privilege. Yes, women are usually expected to do that, but it is also that they have the choice because they have the higher claim for it. Try speculating on becoming a stay at home dad as a man. They exist, but it is hardly something you can count on doing from birth onwards. For women this is still possible. You are probably from an academic background so you don't take into account that many women actually still plan on taking that route, which accounts for a lot of the pay gap (because for example they don't even try to take a high paying career).

If you think about "women having to take care of the children" you also probably think about them missing out on fulfilling fancy careers as journalists, advertisers, scientists and what not. The reality is that most women making that "sacrifice" of their career choose taking care of their children instead of working at the checkout of the supermarket or as a sales person in a fashion store.

Personally I can't think of that many professions that are really better than taking care of your own children. Not saying people shouldn't have free choice in that, but frankly I think women already do have that choice. If you are a female software developer, for example, people will be falling over themselves to hire you.

The whole "wage" comparison is just ideology anyway, they picked one arbitrary thing to measure which makes women look to be victims. If you measured "time spent with family" instead, you'd find a "time spent with family gap" for men - I think that's serious, given that many people work so they can afford to take holidays together with their families. And women are not the poorer for it, because they actually all earn exactly the same as their husbands, at least in Germany: income is split 50:50 between married partners. Curiously, that latter fact is also never mentioned in the wage gap articles.

As for your link, I briefly looked at it and immediately it is clear that they use the dishonest pay gap number. It is 22% in Germany only if you don't take into account different career choices. Within equal professions the pay gap is only 4 to 8% (even less in office jobs). Therefore I am sorry but I can't take that article seriously.

Another article was mentioned in this discussion which showed single childless mothers to earn more than their male counterparts in cities at least.

Edit: another thing, you are also a dad, so you probably witnessed pregnancy and birth. Do you really think it should be the normal thing for women to exclaim "OK, that's done, where is my job please? I want to get back to work" right afterwards? As I said, everybody should have free choice, but on average I think it would be weird to dismiss something you invested so much energy into (pregnancy/childbirth/breast feeding...). It's not that women shouldn't have a choice (as long as the kids are OK), but I am not surprised that many choose to spend as much time with their kids as possible.

Edit 2: Slovakia and Poland could have lots of reason for different wage gaps. Perhaps they are still on communist wage levels where everybody earns the same (next to nothing). Or career choices are not as diverse (ie most people could be peasants or whatever). Another fun part of wage comparisons: one person, like Bill Gates, can actually earn so much more than other persons that they skew the whole statistics (if you use averages). So perhaps there are simply some very rich men in Germany and not in Poland. Or whatver - it is all just guessing, just as you did. In any case, as I said, that article didn't use honest statistics anyway.

>I agree with your point that people need to be careful to not dismiss the gender gap issue (which certainly exists for anyone over a certain age)

But why not be careful in blindingly accepting it? Alot of it is based on questionable application of statistics. Why not let the data speak for itself rather than providing creative interpretations?

For example, the early talking points were based on taking an average without even matching by job type. Ofcourse the part-time nanny doesn't earn as much as an overtime coal miner. That doesn't show a wage-gap.