
The Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from Over a Million Rideshare Drivers [pdf] - malchow
https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/UberPayGap.pdf
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konschubert
Here is the money quote:

> We can explain the entire gap with three factors. First, through the logic
> of compensating differentials, hourly earnings on Uber vary predictably by
> location and time of week, and men tend to drive in more lucrative
> locations. The second factor is work experience. Even in the relatively
> simple production of a passenger’s ride, past experience is valuable for
> drivers. A driver with more than 2,500 lifetime trips completed earns 14%
> more per hour than a driver who has completed fewer than 100 trips in her
> time on the platform, in part because she learn where to drive, when to
> drive, and how to strategically cancel and accept trips. Male drivers
> accumulate more experience than women by driving more each week and being
> less likely to stop driving with Uber. Because of these returns to
> experience and because the typical male Uber driver has more experience than
> the typical female—putting them higher on the learning curve—men earn more
> money per hour. The residual gender earnings gap that persists after
> controlling for these two factors can be explained by a single variable:
> average driving speed.

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little_data
"Furthermore, while Uber now allows riders to tip their drivers in-app, this
did not become available until June 2017, which is outside the scope of our
data. We do not believe that cash tips – which were possible before in-app
tipping – had a material impact on driver earnings."

The study did not have any actual tip data for drivers. Tipping was always an
option in Uber before June 2017, it just became mandatory for the app to ask a
user after each ride. I really think the study is missing some crucial data
surrounding tips.

~~~
beisner
Anecdotally, nobody I know ever tipped an Uber driver before tipping was
introduced in the app, so there being a negligible tipping component would not
surprise me at all.

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prepend
This is interesting. What interventions can be made to reduce this pay gap?
With the reasons in the paper, should this gap be corrected (eg, force maximum
speed, pay higher for slow drivers but only gender specific, etc etc).

~~~
pixel_fcker
Should interventions be made to reduce the gap?

~~~
mlevental
what exactly are you implying? is it that it'll correct itself naturally (free
market forces) or that it doesn't need to be corrected?

~~~
pixel_fcker
I'm implying that it doesn't need to be corrected.

~~~
mlevental
why do you think it doesn't need to be corrected? you don't see how an
equitable distribution of resources between the sexes is much more productive
for the whole? nm the morality of it.

~~~
pixel_fcker
I believe strongly in an equal distribution of opportunity between the sexes.
How would you propose fixing the gap that the paper describes? Simply paying
women drivers 7% more? Would that be fair?

~~~
mlevental
resources should be allocated to correct for this

>The second factor is work experience. Even in the relatively simple
production of a passenger’s ride, past experience is valuable for drivers.

i.e. women should be given training to compensate for the a priori difference
in experience.

women should also be educated about this

>hourly earnings on Uber vary predictably by location and time of week, and
men tend to drive in more lucrative locations.

the obvious question becomes why aren't women driving during more lucrative
times. is it because those times are late nights during which it's potentially
more dangerous for a woman driver. this is of course a systemic issue of a
larger system. my point is that usually when someone claims "accidental/benign
inequality" all one needs to do is expand the scope to discover the malignant
root.

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sebastos
The entire point of the paper is to show that you can observe a statistical
anomaly like wage disparity whenever you compare two different populations,
even when you essentially control for job effectiveness and isolate out any
influence from malicious discrimination. The Uber case is being used to
crystallize an example where there exists a bias in the results, and yet it is
clearly not due to prejudice. It is illustrating the point that just because
there is a pay-gap doesn't mean the source of the pay-gap is employers who
don't properly compensate their female employees. Non-malicious systematic
influences can easily cause such an effect.

And yet you still have people in here wondering what we can do about this new
problem, or how this just goes to show that it's really the SYSTEM that's
biased, man. All I can do is shake my head at this point.

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mlevental
these two things are in such direct contradiction

>systematic influences can easily cause such an effect

>how this just goes to show that it's really the SYSTEM that's biased

that i have no idea what you're really trying to say.

> Non-malicious

no one cares if it's malicious or benign. ask a black person whether they care
about the intentions of those they're being racially profiled by (for
example). it doesn't matter. what matters if systemic inequalities exist - and
here is proof that they do.

~~~
T2_t2
This is either some next level trolling, or really odd.

> The entire point of the paper is to show that you can observe a statistical
> anomaly like wage disparity whenever you compare two different populations,
> even when you essentially control for job effectiveness and isolate out any
> influence from malicious discrimination.

~~~
mlevental
>statistical anomaly

>systematic influences

>bias in the results

>SYSTEM that's biased

you really don't see that who i'm responding to isn't at all consistent in
what they're trying to say? the first 3 aren't mutually consistent and the
fourth makes no sense when contextualized against those prior inconsistencies.

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pbiggar
So the service can be unbiased, but the society/system it exists in will still
be biased.

~~~
malchow
My read of the study is that it more or less proves the opposite: the wage gap
is the result of women having such powerfully different preferences that it
shows up even when we know discrimination is impossible.

~~~
pbiggar
You are letting my point sail over you.

How do women come to those "powerfully different preferences"? Do we think
that all women got together and decided to only drive at less valuable times?

Or is it more likely that there are systemic/societal reasons why women as a
group pick less-valuable times to drive?

~~~
Geeek
Can it be systemic yet not societal? Like biological origins?

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tomlock
>Overall, our results suggest that, even in the gender-blind, transactional,
flexible environment of the gig economy, gender-based preferences (especially
the value of time not spent at paid work and, for drivers, preferences for
driving speed) can open gender earnings gaps.

Not sure this is the right conclusion to draw. If Uber driving is less safe
for female drivers, it's hardly a "gender-based preference" that's driving the
gap. If women are spending more of their flexible hours doing housework or
caring for children than men do, this may not be a "preference". While the
paper does a great job identifying factors correlated with lower income, does
it really indicate an individual's "preference", or does it indicate that the
situation they find themselves in either enables or prevents uber
participation?

