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[Geltor]

yeah except perhaps industries women go into pay less because women are in them?

to wit: computer programming used to be "a womans job," then it changed to "a mans job" and pay rose. teachers are seen as womens work, and pay poorly. so too are nurses. i think i also heard tell that russian science was considered "womans work" and paid less than western scientists? i'm not so sure about that one.

point is: "women go into jobs that pay less!" is not the end. why do women go into those jobs, and why do they pay less?

this doesnt prove your argument as it could very well be the opposite from what you have said. as to your second question, KingMurdoc has very reasonable, survery-backed points.

[mainiac]

demand for programmers has, as you likely know, risen dramatically in recent decades due to the increasing ubiquity of computers

So has supply.  I'm sure you have met plenty of people who can program who dont work as programmers because they are ubiquitous these days.  That simply was not a thing back when most programmers were women.

[DJ]

Nursing is quite unpleasant, requires a degree, an extensive internship and special licencing and pays about twenty one bucks and hour. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292061.htm#ind
That puts them fifty cents an hour ahead of truckers, who dont need a college degree. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm
That puts them five bucks an hour behind plumbers which requires licencing but no degree and where the apprenticeship pays better then nursing internships. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm

Trucking is a really shitty job, though. I'd say it's only second to mining when it comes to shitty work environment.

As for supply of programmers, I'd say that decent programmers are still in short supply, as opposed to people who learned to copy-paste from Stack Exchange. I work in the field, and it's baffling how many people I see that code for living and yet seem to fail at basic logic all the time. Especially in web development, where there's all these mantras that they blindly follow and never even try to understand the reasoning behind them. I half-expect them to start anointing their computers with holy machine oil and praying to Omnissiah before they deploy any new code.

[mainiac]

Trucking is a really shitty job, though. I'd say it's only second to mining when it comes to shitty work environment.

I think the shitty job is the one where you literally get shit on your hands.

[DJ]

Meh, shit isn't that bad. I'd rather handle that and sleep in my bed every night, as opposed to not seeing my family for weeks on end, wrecking my spine with sitting all day and not being able to get up and stretch like in desk jobs, or worrying if somebody is gonna shank me on the next stop because I'm hauling tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods.

[Strife26]

Everyone has priorities, I guess.

[DJ]

It's just that I know plenty of people who got into nursing recently (because it's an easy way to emigrate into Germany), and most of them like it a lot better than their old jobs like waiting tables or construction.

[Lord Shonus]

Try being forced to stand on a concrete floor in a tiny duct-tape square for hours on end (far more damaging to your heart and skeleton than sitting), forbidden to move, while you perform basic mechanical tasks such as blowing metal chips off of a newly cut part, practically bathing in machine oil, and hoping that the cheap breath mask they give you is keeping everything out of your lungs and that your safety glasses will stand up if the blade on the saw doesn't shatter and send shrapnel into your face, for twelve hours a day, all for the absolute minimum they're legally allowed to pay you. There's far, far worse jobs than trucking.

[DJ]

That job doesn't sound very legal.

[mainiac]

wrecking my spine with sitting all day and not being able to get up and stretch like in desk jobs,

Nurses have a super high rate of back injuries.

It's just that I know plenty of people who got into nursing recently (because it's an easy way to emigrate into Germany), and most of them like it a lot better than their old jobs like waiting tables or construction.

Well I was talking about US working conditions.

[Lord Shonus]

That job doesn't sound very legal.

No safety regulations are being broken, the pay is legal, and they provide the required PPE. It's just all right within the limits of the law. This isn't a hypothetical, by the way. I worked this job. For a day.

[mainiac]

We need more manufacturing jobs like that.  Make America great again!

[Cruxador]

Wait, 'white' and 'black' are not accepted terms?

They are, but sometimes you need something with more syllables to make it sound like you're sophisticated and as far from racism as it's possible to be.

It's just that I know plenty of people who got into nursing recently (because it's an easy way to emigrate into Germany), and most of them like it a lot better than their old jobs like waiting tables or construction.

European nursing (and medicine in general) is a lot better than American nursing though.

That job doesn't sound very legal.

No safety regulations are being broken, the pay is legal, and they provide the required PPE. It's just all right within the limits of the law. This isn't a hypothetical, by the way. I worked this job. For a day.

Just because something's being done doesn't necessarily mean it's legal.

[Descan]

yeah except perhaps industries women go into pay less because women are in them?

to wit: computer programming used to be "a womans job," then it changed to "a mans job" and pay rose. teachers are seen as womens work, and pay poorly. so too are nurses. i think i also heard tell that russian science was considered "womans work" and paid less than western scientists? i'm not so sure about that one.

point is: "women go into jobs that pay less!" is not the end. why do women go into those jobs, and why do they pay less?

I believe a good portion of my post was dedicated to pointing out that "women go into jobs that pay less" isn't the full story, and a large portion of that was outlining why women DO choose to go into jobs that pay less. Please read my posts if you expect me to read yours.

As for the only part of your post that wasn't answered, I don't really have anything for you that I can source. I might point out that correlation isn't causation; demand for programmers has, as you likely know, risen dramatically in recent decades due to the increasing ubiquity of computers, and therefore the price tag attached to a programmer has risen.

I have to say that virtually every time I've tried to negotiate higher wages, I've been laughed at or looked down on. The economy around here is such that harder tactics would not be smart.

I don't really have an answer to thid either, I will freely admit. Part of the reason I'm here is to educate myself further on the issue.

sorry, i was trying to expand on you, not counter you

[Reelya]

yeah except perhaps industries women go into pay less because women are in them?

to wit: computer programming used to be "a womans job," then it changed to "a mans job" and pay rose. teachers are seen as womens work, and pay poorly. so too are nurses. i think i also heard tell that russian science was considered "womans work" and paid less than western scientists? i'm not so sure about that one.

point is: "women go into jobs that pay less!" is not the end. why do women go into those jobs, and why do they pay less?

I did point out one reason that female industries are paid less is that employers of women are often lumped with subsidizing childcare arrangements in one way or another (often enforced by laws which are intended to help women, or at least make politicians seem women-friendly), and to not be "discriminatory" they have to spread those costs across their whole workforce. Which means that even women without children are paying for other women's kids. Women also choose jobs where taking leave isn't as big a problem, and doesn't hurt your pay rate as much. e.g. taking a year off from a factory isn't going to hurt as much as other careers. And women also choose jobs with flexible hours. All of these things are to do with the fact that women are planning ahead for having kids one day. In addition, "gender neutral" parental leave is almost all taken by mothers, not fathers, and it's not the woman's employer who is at fault there - the blame more lies with the father's employer if at all, for not fostering a culture of men taking family leave.

Additionally, when you do a more detailed breakdown of the gender pay gap, it's almost 100% concentrated in women with kids.

Any "helpful" policy that makes life easier for working mothers is nice, because it's the "right thing to do", but it does cause the birth rate to increase as well, which pushes more women into the category that has the higher gender gap. All of that just reinforces the existing gender gap. Only Sweden is ahead of the curve here, with policies encouraging dads to take a share of the parental leave.