Did you actually read the report?

Cognitive dissonance occurs when irrefutable facts meet a firmly-held world view.

At this point the subject has two stark choices; change their mind in light of new information or create a mental cul de sac in which to park the inconvenient truth with the hope that it will stay there quietly.

Read the summary of this study (the full paper is linked at the bottom of the article) and then select which choice our blue ticked Tweeter decided upon;

The study found that there was a 7% difference in hourly pay in favour of men and the difference was explained as follows;

20% due to selection of times and locations of rides accepted.

30% due to experience gained by longevity in the service and more hours worked when the longevity was equal.

50% due to men driving 2% faster than women so able to accept more fares in a given period. Other USA studies indicate females have more accidents but men have more fatal accidents.

Nancy still feels that the pay gap is due to duh patriarchy.

Bill’s Opinion

Uber’s algorithm is gender blind. The dataset of 1m drivers, 750m rides over 2 years clearly shows driver choices are responsible for the 7% pay difference.

The pay difference is similar to other industries. This isn’t to claim there is no sexism occurring resulting in pay gaps between men and women in other industries but it does raise a very serious doubt.

And Nancy has just learned the difficult lesson that facts don’t care about her feelings.

H/t View From Northcote

6 Replies to “Did you actually read the report?”

  1. I don’t understand Nancy’s point about unsafe areas for women. That is, I understand she’s dim and flailing about in order to, as you say, construct a mental cul de sac – but the point SHE thinks she’s trying to make. To answer her question with “no” would mean women are making relatively poor strategic decisions. To answer “yes” means women are uniquely unqualified to drive in such locations.

    This illustrates that such people hold the true power in our culture. She hasn’t even bothered to build the straw*man* she wants to blame. She merely bitches incoherently and expects the cool kids to nod in approval, all the while assured that Uber simply hasn’t thought this through.

    1. Welcome.

      Interestingly, the report details that men choose lucrative times and locations (nightclubs at 3am) but so do women (Sunday afternoons).

      Each are smart strategies, but one is slightly better than the other, hence only being responsible for 20% of the 7% pay difference.

      So, men’s choices about where and when to drive account for just 1.4% more pay.

      And that’s more analysis of the report than Nancy will ever do.

  2. Aside from those with the stupidity to comment like Nancy, this study will be ignored as the dissonance will be too painful.

    The key issue in most of the comments I have seen (apart from the lack of self-awareness) is that they think this outlines a difference in what people are paid. It is not that – the pay is the same. The difference is in what people earn as a result of their individual characteristics. This probably includes differing appetite and ability to manage risk, spatial awareness, need to work etc. The earning outcome likely being driven by the factors that the report identified. There will be any number of underlying genetic and situational reasons that males have these characteristics (with some obvious overlap), over females. Men also typically like driving more than women (on average), anecdotally.

    If it does get taken seriously, then the response will likely be to limit the ability of one half of the species to earn more. This will result in unequal earnings outcomes, but equal pay. With a bureaucracy to manage to this, no doubt.

    Without making this too long, I am married to someone who works in the same field as I do, so I have good visibility for comparison purposes. She is capable, motivated and smarter than most of the men around her (including me). She has no children of her own (has passed the likely age for children) and has devoted her considerable energy to her work and education. This has resulted in some spirited bidding for her services from firms with a strong male dominance seeking gender balance. She now has a salary materially above that of her male manager (20% we are guessing), and as best I can tell, materially above all of the males doing similar roles across every organisation in the sector.

    1. PWC have a gender hiring policy that states they must have 40% male, 40% female, 20% “other”.

      Perhaps we might one day refer to this as the “Corporal Klinger Policy”?

  3. Also, note the tweeter’s focus on “hourly” pay. False comparison, since it’s basically piecework. Complete more jobs, get more money *at the same rate* (-ish, since I assume Uber’s algorithm determines different rates per job according to demand, mileage, ToD, etc etc).

    1. Exactly.

      There seems to be an incredible amount of financial and numeracy ignorance from these commentators. They’re confusing and conflating all sorts of categories and definitions.

      Working on the assumption that incompetence is the most likely cause, one wonders how they manage their own personal finances.

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