Lyft commits to closing wage gaps across race and gender

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/lyft-commits-to-closing-wage-gaps-across-race-and-gender/

by gringoDan • 8 years ago

25 40 8 years ago

techcrunch.com

romanovcode3• 8 years ago

Why is it that Asian people are earning 2x more than white people yet article is focusing on "white men"?

Nice journalism. Not biased at all.

https://i.imgur.com/rjmHYk0.png

justaman• 8 years ago

There has been a strong hate towards white men in particular in recent years. Everything seems to be their fault if you read huffpo.

faitswulff• 8 years ago

It's not actually a recent phenomenon...

vkou3• 8 years ago

The problem is not white men, the problem is that our society has many (but not all) systemic biases that benefits them, at the expense of others. Many of these biases are so ingrained, they are invisible.

As a white man, I don't have to deal with many categories of bullshit that people of color and women are subjected to. I do have to deal with a few things that they don't, but there aren't many of them.

tatotato• 8 years ago

This is wrong. The article states Asian males earn 117% as much, which is just 17% more. This is one of the things that turns me off Hacker News, an overly strong bias in defense of white men.

Geeek• 8 years ago

Overly strong? Maybe they miswrote? Maybe they did their calculations wrong? You are assuming quiet a lot here.

ovao5• 8 years ago

I believe in this case it was a simple misinterpretation of the terminology rather than nefarious intent.

neveroffensive• 8 years ago

This is one of the things that turns me off Hacker News, an overly strong bias in defense of white men.

Really? I feel the exact opposite. HN is full of articles like this, singling out white men, and claiming they are somehow either toxic or the beneficiaries of privilege.

I detest gender/identity politics, and don't think claims should be leveled against an entire group based on unrelated physical traits. This is the only reason I jump to defend "white men". If an article was posted making the same claims about another race/gender I would mount the same defense. However, those kinds of articles never show up here, because the are more obviously racist.

romanovcode3• 8 years ago

Yes, you are right. But even so - the point stands. I'm not trying to defend anything, especially white men. I'm just saying this journalism is biased to portray white men in bad light.

dragonwriter3• 8 years ago

Why is it that Asian people are earning 2x more than white people

They aren't. 2× more is 300% of the base value. Asian men make 117% of what white men make, Asian women make 87% of what white men make (or 106% of what white women make.) So, Asian people earn between 6% and 17% more, not “2× more”, than what white people of the same gender make.

romanovcode3• 8 years ago

As someone else pointed out - yes, you are right and I was wrong. However the point stands - Asians make more money then everyone yet article points out how white men are earning more.

Again, I'm not trying to defend any white men or whatever, however don't you see the clear agenda this journalist is pushing?

troupe2• 8 years ago

I'm curious how they determined that the 1% of cases were gender and race-based and not something else. With such a small number, it seems like it would be very easy for the variations to be caused by other factors. It is probably good PR for them, but the math behind the decision would be pretty interesting.

lallysingh• 8 years ago

1% of a large number is still a large number.

troupe2• 8 years ago

Yes, but with a small enough number you might be able to find that people with blue eyes are paid more than people with brown eyes. You'd expect some level of random variation and such a small number makes it seem that it may really not have anything to do with their gender.

Think of it this way. If you flipped a coin a large number of times and 51% of the times it came up heads would you assume the coin was biased or would you suspect that it could just be random variation?

oh_sigh2• 8 years ago

How do you close the wage gap? Is it just bulk monetary transfer to people who identify as women?

ovao5• 8 years ago

Presumably Lyft increased pay rates for those they identified as having been paid unequally due to race or gender.

oh_sigh2• 8 years ago

Ah, I see this is for Lyft employees, and not Lyft drivers which I assumed. It makes sense that Lyft would have much more data regarding sexism or racism affecting their employees than they would sexism or racism affecting drivers.

wu-ikkyu5• 8 years ago

The central variable that creates the "gender pay gap" is not sexist employer discrimination. The gap is primarily created by the fact that women, more typically than men, are the ones who raise children full time.

https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/04/14/statistica...

cbhl2• 8 years ago

Yes, we should also be advocating for better paternity leave policies, so that men can take a bigger role in child care.

However, that does not mean companies shouldn't audit pay across race and gender, controlling for job role, level and performance.

Nor does it mean companies shouldn't audit performance reviews for inequity.

Nor does it mean companies shouldn't audit job role and level and promotion processes for inequity.

Nor does it mean companies shouldn't audit hiring processes for inequity.

Different people experience inequity in different ways. Some people experience it in more than one way. We need systemic solutions to address each of these failure modes.

wu-ikkyu5• 8 years ago

Indeed consistency is important. Likewise it is important to review these things without the influence of erroneous prejudice, such as the belief that women with the same skills and experience are being systemically paid less due to rampant sexism.

jinushaun• 8 years ago

No amount of “better” paternity leave will ever mean that I will be able to birth and nurse a child myself. (First time dad here of a 5 month old) Nor do I require extra time off before the birth. Fathers don’t have this issue because they don’t lose time giving birth and recovering no matter how involved they are in taking care of the kid after birth. This lost time is unavoidable for working moms.

Even in countries with generous leave policy, this lost time is unrecoverable and has a permanent affect on your career. For example, in Italy the mother is forced to take a year off whether they want to or not. That’s one year less of a promotion or pay raise.

Time is money and time not working is time not earning money. These are real obstacles women face in the workforce that drive down their earning potential. Successful women either choose to not have children, or earn enough to pay someone else to care for their children full time.

cbhl2• 8 years ago

This only covers full-time employees (software engineers, designers, and the like), right? Not any of their drivers?

gringoDan• 8 years ago

Correct. Some economists from Stanford & Uber actually did a fascinating analysis of the gender earnings gap for drivers.

tl;dr - Men earn 7% more:

We find that the entire gender gap is caused by three factors: experience on the platform (learning-by-doing), preferences over where/when to work, and preferences for driving speed.

https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf

Edit - I originally found out about this study from a Freakonomics podcast. These economists are chomping at the bit to get newer data (which will include tips). Their hypothesis is that women's earnings will increase, since women's tips are 10-20% greater than men's. However, they also say tipping increases the supply of drivers, which will serve to decrease utilization rate and thus lower hourly pay.

Lyft commits to closing wage gaps across race and gender

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