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Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

Assuming you mean that men have jobs with higher average salaries, there are still implications beyond that. Do men have higher salaries because they are more likely to consider salary when choosing a job? Do women have lower salaries due to sexism? Some combination of the two? Something else?

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> Something else?

Here's one more thing that might be a confounding factor - taller people have higher salaries [0], and on average men are taller than women.

Maybe just a spurious correlation [1], but still interesting to think about.

0: https://www.livescience.com/5552-taller-people-earn-money.ht...

1: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

I'd love to know if women as tall as men get paid closer to men's salaries, as a group.

It would be odd if hight was the only factor.

The question I would like to know is how large the height factor is to other measurable effects.

I did notice (anecdotal) that people in management are usually taller. Taller than me I might add, and I'm a solid 6'2" (which is like... slightly above average in NL). A lot of people in management are closer to 6'6" (2 meters).

as a normie (at 5'10"), I've definitely noticed this

Makes sense. If you have to literally look up to someone when you talk to them, they are in a very solid position of power from an instinctual, "primitive brain" perspective.

Once women start doing a job, “It just doesn’t look like it’s as important to the bottom line or requires as much skill,” said Paula England, a sociology professor at New York University. “Gender bias sneaks into those decisions.”

She is a co-author of one of the most comprehensive studies of the phenomenon, using United States census data from 1950 to 2000, when the share of women increased in many jobs. The study, which she conducted with Asaf Levanon, of the University of Haifa in Israel, and Paul Allison of the University of Pennsylvania, found that when women moved into occupations in large numbers, those jobs began paying less even after controlling for education, work experience, skills, race and geography.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over...

Is that the case? Or is it that men leave a field when the pay begins to drop? Distinguishing between cause and effect is very important in these matters. I don't see anything here to suggest the authors have established the cause and effect relationship.

> Is that the case? Or is it that men leave a field when the pay begins to drop?

Supply and demand as well. More workers willing to do a job means the offered pay can be lower. Sellers market VS buyers market.

Exactly what I came here to say. Ramp up STEM grads? Pay drops. Ramp up attorney grads? Pay drops. Ramp up workforce in a sector? Pay drops. Adding women to the marketplace for a particular job significantly increases competition for employment. As an example, if a bunch of pro-male motivational speakers went out and encouraged men who currently have very dangerous jobs to move into nursing en mass, and the spots in nursing schools weren't artificially limited (they are, in reality), the pay would drop.

When product A enters a Market dominated by B in large numbers,the Price drops. This is explained by the market being Assist.

Well duh, a bigger supply of workers will reduce the salary required to meet the demand for labor.

Pretty straightforward supply and demand.

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