
Google Pays Female Workers Less Than Male Counterparts, Labor Department Says - arcanus
https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-pays-female-workers-less-than-male-counterparts-labor-department-says-1491622997
======
simonsarris
What they're counting matters. It seems if Google has the goal of hiring more
females than industry average, then the stats are stacked against them when
you look at their worker pay distribution, even if Google isn't doing anything
wrong.

Suppose the population is distributed in their experience and productivity,
and that you can measure these to some extent.

Suppose your field has _way_ more males than females. This is not your fault,
more of a pipeline thing, but you want to be more equal internally than the
outside world is. Most people commend this kind of thing.

If you are fairly paying both genders, wouldn't you _necessarily_ have to take
more unproductive and inexperienced female engineers to reach your goal? And
if you're fairly paying based on those criteria, won't the female population
be paid less as you try to take on a more-than-average number of them?

I'm not saying any of this is how it ought to be, just that it seems like a
typical conclusion with napkin math, and would result in these allegations
while Google is actually trying to do good.

Interestingly if equal pay were _not a thing,_ I would expect the opposite
headline: That Google would pay women much more than men to work so that they
could attempt to correct a gender imbalance internally that exists in the
external population (software workers).

~~~
oval-atom
Considering that there are probably hundreds of companies listed as Federal
Contractors, and among them, the major Defense Contractors with thousands of
employees. I would find it difficult to believe that Google has any grounds
that would make them an exception to complying with the Federal requirement of
submitting Compensation Data. From experience I can assure that Defense
Contractors would have exploited any loophole or angle to relieve them of
fulfilling this Federal requirement. Of note here is that Google was asked to
submit this data back in September of 2015 and have been given numerous
opportunities to meet their obligation. “Diversity and equal pay” of the
workforce has been a very visible topic as of late, so you would think that
Google would take a position of being in the forefront, and setting an example
especially in the tech industry. It hasn’t been too long ago, Microsoft was
being chastised for its apparent lack of diversity and equal pay. Google was
not forced to be a Federal Contractor; they accepted that position and
therefore accepted the responsibility of meeting the Federal requirement from
the beginning. If Google had a problem then, they should have not accepted the
responsibility of being a Federal Contractor. Maybe Google has taken the
position that they are “Too Big to Comply” or they do have something to hide.
But the old adage applies, “They knew what they were getting into in the first
place”, and they undoubtedly accepted compensation.

~~~
kyrra
I recommend reading some of the news that started this 3 months ago[0]. Quote
from Google's response:

"However, the handful of OFCCP requests that are the subject of the complaint
are overbroad in scope, or reveal confidential data, and we’ve made this clear
to the OFCCP, to no avail. These requests include thousands of employees’
private contact information which we safeguard rigorously."

[0] [https://www.law360.com/articles/877558/dol-sues-google-
over-...](https://www.law360.com/articles/877558/dol-sues-google-over-
withheld-compensation-data)

~~~
oval-atom
Again, Google entered into a contractual agreement to be compensated as a
Federal Contractor. DoL's request is part of that contract. Google's stand for
protecting private contact information is basically mute. The IRS also
contains much of that information. I recommend reading the official complaint.
[https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170104](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170104)

------
m52go
I can't read the whole article, but does it (or DOL documents) include details
like amount of experience and job function?

I've heard that much (not all) of the aggregate gap (i.e., on the national
level) goes away after controlling for those variables.

Curious if that applies here, and if so, to what degree.

Edit: consider recent headlines promoting outrage at Marissa Mayer's successor
earning double her salary because he's a man. Turns out he's a veteran
executive with 20 years of C-level experience. Mayer didn't have that. It may
be an extreme example, but it's a good reminder to be cautious about pay gap
assertions.

~~~
snarf21
I can't find the source but I read something recently that said that after
controlling for position and experience the pay gap is around 7%. Off the
cuff, I find that to match my intuition. If you could hire women engineers for
80% of the equivalent man, then all companies would wan't to hire every other
companies women at 90% of equivalent because they would still be getting a
deal and the women would get a big pay bump. This is not happening.

There is a pay gap and we should fix that. It is also very likely to vary
widely in different industries. I also wonder if it all really caused by
closed minded hirers who pay women less because they are going to be "too
emotional" or other such nonsense.

~~~
belorn
That 7% isn't uniform through all age groups. At below age 25 women at the
some education and position earn more than men. from age 25-35 the wage gap
reverts, and from age 35 and up men earn more than women. With a work force
that generally starts at age 20 and stop work at around age 60 the total
result gives you that 7%.

So what would a rational fix be to that?

~~~
erroneousfunk
What's your source on a gap with higher earning women below age 25? All I can
find is [http://www.aauw.org/files/2017/01/spring2017-the-simple-
trut...](http://www.aauw.org/files/2017/01/spring2017-the-simple-truth-
figure-5.jpg) which doesn't control for education or position, but with women
going to college in higher numbers than men...

I can't find any statistics that show women out-earning men, at any age or
education level, in the US.

------
dsacco
Note that this is not originally a WSJ story; for those without a
subscription, you'll learn just as much by reading from the same news source
that WSJ is commenting on (and which they link to in this article):

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-
pa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pay-
disparities-women-labor-department-lawsuit)

Of course, when I say "just as much" I mean "not much", because neither party
has released anything substantive to rebut the other's claims. Until then, the
court of public opinion is going to be both passionate and completely
uninformed. But if I'm being cynical, that's probably the point of reporting
on it at this stage.

------
jacquesm
Until the government releases their methodology it is hard to know how factual
this assessment is.

Google has done a lot of work internally to even up the gap and claims that
they have achieved parity.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-
pa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pay-
disparities-women-labor-department-lawsuit)

Either party could squelch the un-informed debate by releasing the data and
the methods used to arrive at their conclusions.

~~~
denzil_correa
DoL is suing Google to access for data in order to complete their evaluation
of a pay gap. DoL suspects a pay disparity. It needs more data to come to a
definition conclusion for which it asked Google and was denied access.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067113)

~~~
jacquesm
Don't you think the headline is a bit premature then?

------
yomly
It is hard to discern what is going on, and it feels strange to say I trust
Google ahead of the government.

Google is full of engineers who prize logic and fairness above most else, and
culturally most the engineers I meet in most places espouse gender parity and
equality. In light of this, it is hard to believe Google would not find a way
to even up payscales. That said, while non-management says one thing it is
often the case that management find a way to enact the opposite.

Something in me feels like this has the air of a dirty underhanded PR-war to
it, and the government is trying to pressure Google into something we don't
know about...

~~~
freddyc
While I generally agree with your main point, I have witnessed engineers who
espouse equality publicly until their own remuneration is the topic of
discussion, at which point self-interest kicks in and "of course I should earn
more than A, because x, y, z ..." becomes the private narrative.

While a lot of progress has been made in reducing the gender wage gap in tech,
we still have a long way to go.

~~~
jimmywanger
> "of course I should earn more than A, because x, y, z ..."

Unless "x, y, and z" include "because I'm a man and she's a woman" then I
don't really understand your point. Of course most employees think they're
underpaid, and they can all come up with reasons, due to performance on the
job, specific incidents, experience, and level of education why they should be
paid more.

How is that related at all to gender wage gap in any industry, let alone tech
specifically?

------
brians
It would be surprising and novel if the DoL statisticians had produced an
unambiguous correct analysis. They're working in a complex field, and under
pressure and regulated to use the wrong tools in many cases---so I'm sure
plenty of the people there are excellent and could do great work---DoL
statistics in general are not a good basis for action.

Example: DoL is required by law to track non-white applicants and hiring to
jobs. Alice is not white, and applies to ten open jobs at Example.com, a hot
new startup. She's hired for one. DoL reports this as 90% of non-white
applicants being rejected. If 10 non-white applicants each apply for all those
ten jobs and are all hired, one job each, that's 90% rejection.

A mix of law and regulation requires counting this way. Near one edge case
(plausibly including SV today!) the error doesn't matter much. But as you get
anywhere near justice, this isn't helpful.

So without seeing the details of this analysis, I'm skeptical that DoL's way
of counting is helpful here.

~~~
sitkack
I think you are constructing a strawman. If rejection statistics were indeed
calculated as you describe, it would scale with the number of job seekers
crossed with the demographic. I am going to go with DoL statisticians not
being idiots.

~~~
lr4444lr
Strawman or not, the public has a right to the methodology and criteria behind
the DoL's claim, without which we are free to disbelieve their allegations
without justifying ourselves.

~~~
sitkack
We should hold both Google and the DoL to the same standard, nowhere does
"trust us" form a compelling argument.

------
denzil_correa
The US Dept. of Labor is suing Google for not revealing compensation data [0].

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has suspicion on
pay disparities and in order to investigate further sent a request to Google
to access some records (Point 9) [1]. Google denied OFCCP access to these
records. Now, DoL has taken Google to court to get access to the records they
need to investigate further and complete their evaluation. I wonder why Google
is being so evasive about it.

[0]
[https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170104](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/ofccp/ofccp20170104)

[1]
[https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsrelease...](https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/newsroom/newsreleases/OFCCP20162406_0.pdf)

~~~
jimmywanger
> I wonder why Google is being so evasive about it.

The article says that Google thinks the DOL is going on a fishing expedition.
They turned over records, but like most private companies, don't like turning
over records for no reason, especially about highly confidential information
such as compensation packages.

~~~
denzil_correa
> The article says that Google thinks the DOL is going on a fishing
> expedition.

That's because the system is designed in such a way. The DoL can't make a case
without access to meaningful data. So, if the system is designed to make
access difficult this is what we end up with.

> They turned over records

They did not turn over records - that's what the entire lawsuit is about as
mentioned in the court documents.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Clearly they've turned over at least some records before. They're making their
case with 2015 data.

~~~
denzil_correa
I don't think so. The lawsuit clearly mentions that Google denied access to
data. In fact, Google attorney is on record saying that we denied access too.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Then what is the 2015 data mentioned in the article?

------
antoncohen
The DoL claims "discrimination against women in Google is quite extreme, even
in this industry", while Google claims "every year, we do a comprehensive and
robust analysis of pay across genders and we have found no gender pay gap".

DoL is probably lacking data, and has a somewhat simplistic methodology (i.e.,
they see woman are paid less, but they don't know why). I highly doubt Google
is intentionally discriminating against woman, I actually think they are
probably trying very hard to have equal employment practices. But they still
might be discriminating without knowing it.

Here is what _could_ e happening: The DoL says "you pay women less, even when
they have the same experience". Google says "we pay for performance, not
experience, when you take performance into account there is no pay gap".

What Google might be missing is that there are unconscious biases causing
performance reviews of woman to be more negative. I think that is highly
likely. My understanding is that Google is highly reliant of performance
reviews and performance pay, so under those conditions the DoL might be
correct in saying discrimination is "quite extreme, even in this industry".

------
davidf18
Assuming labor markets are liquid, if the pay gap is true it means either: 1\.
Women really want to work for Google and take less pay than working at other
employers or 2\. Women at almost all employers are receiving less money.

There were times not too long ago when there were Jewish quotas. Nobelist
Physicist Richard Feynman was denied entry into Columbia and he went to MIT
instead.

Nobelist Medicine & Physiology Author Kornberg was one of 3 of 200 Jewish
applicants to get into medical school from his university.

Those universities/firms that didn't have Jewish quotas and discrimination got
a good boost in performance over those who had quotas and discrimination.

If they women are only getting paid less at Google and not other firms then
they should change firms. If other firms are paying less, then Feds should go
after them as well and not single out Google. Any firm that pays women as much
as men should be able to hire the competent women from Google.

In another part of the WSJ article, there is a complaint that most of the
employees are male and asian or white. They should examine the portion of
people attending top engineering schools: male and asian or white.

~~~
kgwgk
> Any firm that pays women as much as men should be able to hire the competent
> women from Google.

Only if that firm pays men and women more than Google pays (competent) women.

~~~
davidf18
Does Google pay more than Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook, ....?

------
malandrew
At what point is a company responsible for discrepancies in pay due to
behavioral differences that likely exist between genders. Most jobs have a
salary range for each title and they present candidates an initial figure at
the low end of that range. To get a figure at the top end of that range, the
candidate needs to initiate negotiation and have the
skills/experience/practice doing so, including the knowledge that they need to
do things like talk about competing offers and avoid divulging their previous
salary.

There is plenty of research showing negotiating differences between the sexes
(including differences in negotiating based on the gender of the
counterparties relative to one another).

Shouldn't the government instead compare discrepancies between initial offers
for the same position instead of actual salary negotiated?

If they don't use initial offer, then the business needs to correct for this
and every way I can think of to correct destroys the firm's ability to recruit
the difficult candidates while still remaining competitive with other firms.
The firms that correct for these differences will pay more on average for
labor than its competitors and will likely lose out on the capable candidates
that know their self worth and demand compensation that reflects that.

------
trishume
Can someone who actually has access to the story answer the following
questions for me. Is this before or after controlling for:

\- field of work. Is this the whole company or just devs?

\- years at the company.

\- age, as a crude proxy for total experience at all companies.

Also does it say the magnitude of the gap?

There's a number of ways this headline could be true, all may be unfortunate
from a societal perspective, but it only shows bias on Google's part if this
is after controlling for the things companies say they base their pay on.

~~~
sitkack
They also base the pay on negotiation, something which men are much more
aggressive about and that woman who negotiate hard are judged unfairly.

------
_Codemonkeyism
This often happens in cultures - not sure Google is such a culture - were you
negotiate your initial salary, raises and need to push for promotions.

When advising women on interviewing I always suggest they ask for more money
than they are comfortable with.

~~~
user5994461
> When advising women on interviewing I always suggest they ask for more money
> than they are comfortable with.

I do the same for men.

Saw a few guys jump ship recently for significant raises. Turns out they were
badly underpaid :D

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Yes me too ;-) But especially with women. Since reading "Negotiating Your
Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute" a long time ago I've applied this to
myself.

------
xienze
Methodology is important here. A lot of the logic behind pay gap talk assumes
that the jobs men and women do in the same company are exactly the same, as if
these are assembly line jobs and worker output can be compared in a direct and
straightforward manner. Anyone who works in tech knows that what each person
contributes varies greatly and there's no way to directly compare what two
people do or even the amount of experience they bring to the table when
they're hired.

------
sidcool
What is that Google would gain from this? Not that they are strapped for
money. It could only lead to such bad publicity. And if the women engineers
were hired by Google, they obviously are good at it. Can't understand the
rationale behind it, if true.

------
sitkack
My incoming is already intimate knowledge to the state and my employer. Why
isn't the DoL doing this type analysis across all employers? What exactly has
to be divulged that the gov doesn't already know?

------
datamgr
Has anyone ever considered that women regardless of industry get paid less
because they don't negotiate for more? As a female from the tech and other
industries including talent acquisition rarely do I come across another female
who asks for more or alternative compensation in either the hiring, review, or
promotion stage of their career. As a benefits manager I've known the top
limit companies will pay and sat quietly as female executives accepted offers
that were 20-30k away from what the company was willing to give. Bottom line
if you don't ask for more you won't get it. Men ask, women rarely do.

------
dleslie
I'm not certain why anyone would be surprised. Remember the spreadsheet from
2015?

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=google+spreadsheet+compensation+le...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=google+spreadsheet+compensation+leaked)

------
hookey
They should replace all their men with women and reap the profits

------
1_2__3
Companies like google are obsessed with diversity. The idea that they'd
systematically pay women less is laughable - you will not find more liberal
environments outside of academia.

I can't help but wonder if this is politically motivated.

------
GnwbZHiU
Just identify those workers as male. Problem solved.

------
UnoriginalGuy
Another (non-paywall) article:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-
pa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/07/google-pay-
disparities-women-labor-department-lawsuit)

Seems like it is early days on this lawsuit. The DoL are asking for more
documentation about employee's pay and Google is calling it a "fishing
expedition." This is definitely one to watch, but I won't be drawing any
conclusions this early in this lawsuit (since even the DoL say they need more
documentation to prove their case).

------
wonderous
Prior HN comments and no paywall Guardian story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14063043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14063043)

------
tim333
Link to avoid paywall
[https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.c...](https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fgoogle-
pays-female-workers-less-than-male-counterparts-labor-department-
says-1491622997&h=ATNo1YZ-
SgUdJ8wz83J0cO5LV8wz3OcKeYvQQ8ypDdqLNSLm74vBUcKyDN0isAyNoRFXEIRbjE7oj8XngWr9Jq-
i-jw9mFUAIg&_rdr)

~~~
rascul
Going to the site via Facebook doesn't avoid the paywall.

~~~
eecks
It did for me

------
watbe
Non-paywalled but not identical version:
[http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-
google-w...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-
women-20170407-story.html)

------
anonymous555
There is no such thing as equal pay for equal work. Two people within the same
gender aren't paid equal in the Tech or any Professional services Industry
forget across genders. More importantly, can someone define what equal work
is? Same role/title doesn't translate to equal work. Every person has
different capabilities even within in the same role and if it happens to be
that a Woman outperforms than her peers then she should be paid equal or more
and I wholeheartedly support that but the sad part with Women is that they
never talk about such cases but instead Just hangs on to the phrase "Equal pay
for Equal work" so they know if they make enough noise they can get equal pay
but they never mention a word about equal work. And after working for 10 years
in the Industry (which means I am young so don't think I am talking about some
B.C era) and statistically speaking most of the time it had always been men
who did tasks that are above and beyond from their regular duties. Sheryl
Sandberg Just spits out some none sense. She just got so Lucky to be the COO
at FB in the first place. she thinks that if a company can control # years of
experience, education level, and blah blah then that will be the deciding
factor for Equal pay. I am like really? So two people with same amount of
years of experience can perform the same way? Two people with the same
education level are equally bright? What if one person went to college Doofus
and another went to Stanford? I am sure going to better college doesn't
automatically translate into a bright and efficient person for the company but
it is an accomplishment one should acknowledge for their hard work. so in
short, none of these factors can be controlled and the way most companies
Judge pay depends on how well one performs in the Interview which is very much
reasonable. If we do the Sheryl Sandberg way we actually don't need an HR
department (which Btw, is lot of Women) we can just write a program to accept
or reject applicants if is really that straight forward to control the factors
she is talking about. I think it would be great if someone can actually make
Sheryl Sandberg to code on a daily basis and deal with all the production
issues. I went to an Ivy League school and I worked as a TA for many Computer
Science courses. I had worked with many students (both Men and Women) I had
seen them getting Jobs at Google and FB and whenever they told me they got
into Google or FB I used to ask my students so What questions did they ask
you? Typically it is Algorithms most of the time as we all know and I can for
sure say that the Algorithms questions asked to Men are way Significantly
harder than Women. Now why is this not highlighted? Because companies like
Google, FB wants to highlight that they hired Women. I bet my entire savings
(I truly mean it) that if I go Google even today and pick random sample of 50
(25 Men Vs 25 Women) and randomly ask the Algorithm questions Men will
significantly outperform Women because I know the level of difficulty
questions asked for a Women and Men to get into Google. This is totally
unfair. And I hate Men for giving up on these issues. I am sure most companies
know all of this. They want to pay equal because they don't want to deal with
one more hassle. If I am a CEO of a large organization I will be all over the
media asking Women define what Equal work is before they start talking about
Equal Pay. And I would look at it case by case If a woman outperforms her
peers then As a CEO I would actually pay more period.

------
eecks
I can't wait to see Googles response. I have no idea why they would even open
themselves up to this criticism when they could easily align the salaries.

~~~
dsacco
They responded and denied it; frankly it's plausible that they're correct (but
also that they're not). It's not yet fair to assume one party is correct over
the other while both try to drive the media presentation. Let it play out.

~~~
angstrom
I would lean towards both being correct depending on how they looked at the
data. If you did purely education level, degree field and years of experience
related to position then I would expect minimal deviation. However, you can go
further tweaking how you look at each of those variables.

