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Comment by jdmichal | Hacker News Reader

They implicitly do when they compare diversity statistics to the entire population, rather than the population of qualified workers. And that distinction right there ties directly in to GP's entire point; it comes down to education. For instance, it's not exactly a secret in the US that women are underrepresented in STEM education. So of course they are underrepresented in STEM careers.

If the pool of qualified workers does not have the same statistics as the general population, what is a workplace supposed to do about that, other than hire unqualified people?

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The "pipeline problem" isn't nearly as cut and dry as you seem to assert and ignoring systematic biases in hiring, promoting and funding by just saying it is an education problem isn't helpful. Thinking from a top down instead of bottom up, what if the lack of STEM education in a community is due to that community seeing no representation in the leadership (or even employees) of major companies? I don't think you can get people into STEM if the people think the game is rigged against them when it comes to hiring.

> The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men: a 30-year analysis

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00...

> Top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/12/silicon-valley...

I wasn't ignoring them, or at least only as much as you're ignoring the points you're responding to. There's a "hidden" population of qualified workers between firms hiring and the general population. Comparing the latter two without comparing to the former gives some information, but does not necessarily point to where the disparity occurs. It could be occurring in education, or hiring, or both. Ignore either one at your own peril.

Also, your first article is covering a topic that's not even relevant here -- How many STEM bachelors continue to a PhD. That doesn't mean that women are entering nor achieving STEM degrees at a proportion comparable to the general population.

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