Technology will widen pay gap and hit women hardest – Davos report- Guardian

Research into jobs finds men’s dominance in IT and biotech is reversing trend towards equality

The gulf between men and women at work – in both pay and status – is likely to widen unless action is taken to tackle inequality in high-growth sectors such as technology, say researchers at this week’s World Economic Forum summit in Davos.

A new WEF report on the future of jobs finds the dominance of men in industries such as information and biotechnology, coupled with the enduring failure of women to rise to the top even in the health and education sectors, is helping to reverse gender equality after years of improvements.

Artificial intelligence could hardwire sexism into our future. Unless we stop it- WEF Blog

In five years’ time, we might travel to the office in driverless cars, let our fridges order groceries for us and have robots in the classroom. Yet, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2017, it will take another 100 years before women and men achieve equality in health, education, economics and politics.

What’s more, it's getting worse for economic parity: it will take a staggering 217 years to close the gender gap in the workplace.

How can it be that the world is making great leaps forward in so many areas, especially technology, yet it's falling backwards when it comes to gender equality?

Bias, AI, Biased decisions, Data, Gender Equality, Gender Gap, Women in Tech, Women in the WorkplaceBrigitte BellanDecember 16, 2017Alison Kay, EY, WEF

Working for the algorithm Machines will help employers overcome bias - The Economist

Who is best placed to judge a firm’s workers? In 2018 employees everywhere will increasingly feel the effects of the rise of “talent analytics”, also known as “people analytics”, as they go about their daily work. Having been relatively slow compared with other corporate departments in making use of big data, in 2018 human-resources (HR) folk will become its most enthusiastic proponents—with significant implications for who gets hired, what they are paid and whether they are promoted. Employees will have to get used to being (often unwitting) guinea pigs in frequent HR experiments. And wise ones will think ever more carefully about how they express themselves in e-mails and on digital collaborative-working platforms such as Slack.

One reason is the pressure HR executives will face to make workplaces better for women and minority groups. The limitations of established approaches, such as training and awareness programmes, had caused “diversity fatigue” to set in. But it has become a corporate priority again after shocking headlines in 2017 about sexual discrimination and harassment in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, professional sports and big media firms, which reminded the world that bad corporate culture is a serious business risk.

Garbage in. Garbage Out. - NEVERTHELESS

One afternoon in Florida in 2014,18-year Brisha Borden was running to pick up her god-sister from school when she spotted an unlocked kid’s bicycle and a silver scooter. Brisha and a friend grabbed the bike and scooter and tried to ride them down the street. Just as the 18-year-old girls were realizing they were too big for the toys, a woman came running after them saying, “That’s my kid’s stuff.” They immediately dropped the stuff and walked away. But it was too late — a neighbor who witnessed the event had already called the police. Brisha and her friend were arrested and charged with burglary and petty theft for the items, valued at a total of $80.

The previous summer, 41-year-old Vernon Prater was picked up for shoplifting $86.35 worth of tools from a nearby Home Depot store. He had already been convicted of several armed robbery charges and had served 5 years in prison. Borden, the 18 year old, had a record too — but for juvenile misdemeanors.

For the the full transcript and podcast:

https://medium.com/nevertheless-podcast/transcript-garbage-in-garbage-out-78b74b08f16e

The key to closing the gender gap? Putting more women in charge - WEF

While women worldwide are closing the gap in critical areas such as health and education, significant gender inequality persists in the workforce and in politics. Given current rates of change, this year’s Global Gender Gap Reportestimates it will be another 217 years before we achieve gender parity.

As part of its workforce gap analysis, the World Economic Forum turned to LinkedIn to better understand the trends in gender equality across the workforce. Thanks to our unique insight into real-time workforce trends, LinkedIn can provide more depth, nuance, and timeliness than the sort of data historically gathered by governments or NGOs. Our data provides insight into the role women leaders play in driving overall economic equity and participation.

Women will wait 217 years for pay gap to close, WEF says - The Guardian

Gender parity ‘shifting into reverse’ as World Economic Forum adds 47 years to time needed to reach workplace equality.

The authors of a new report forecasting that it could take 170 years to eradicate the disparity in pay and employment opportunities for men and women have called for urgent action to close the gender equality gap.

The report by the World Economic Forum – best known for its high-profile gathering each year in Davos, Switzerland – found that economic disparity between women and men around the world was rising even though the gap was closing on other measures, such as education.

A Study Used Sensors to Show That Men and Women Are Treated Differently at Work - HBR

Gender equality remains frustratingly elusive. Women are underrepresented in the C-suite, receive lower salaries, and are less likely to receive a critical first promotion to manager than men. Numerous causes have been suggested, but one argument that persists points to differences in men and women’s behavior.

Which raises the question: Do women and men act all that differently? We realized that there’s little to no concrete data on women’s behavior in the office. Previous work has relied on surveys and self-reported assessments — methods of data collecting that are prone to bias. Fortunately, the proliferation of digital communication data and the advancement of sensor technology have enabled us to more precisely measure workplace behavior.

We decided to investigate whether gender differences in behavior drive gender differences in outcomes at one of our client organizations, a large multinational firm, where women were underrepresented in upper management. In this company, women made up roughly 35%–40% of the entry-level workforce but a smaller percentage at each subsequent level. Women made up only 20% of people at the two highest seniority levels at this organization.

Artificial Intelligence—With Very Real Biases-WSJ

According to AI Now co-founder Kate Crawford, digital brains can be just as error-prone and biased as ours.

What do you imagine when someone mentions artificial intelligence? Perhaps it’s something drawn from science-fiction films: Hal’s glowing eye, a shape-shifting terminator or the sound of Samantha’s all-knowing voice in the movie “Her.”

As someone who researches the social implications of AI, I tend to think of something far more banal: a municipal water system, part of the substrate of our everyday lives. We expect these systems to work—to quench our thirst, water our plants and bathe our children. And we assume that the water flowing into our homes and offices is safe. Only when disaster strikes—as it did in Flint, Mich.—do we realize the critical importance of safe and reliable infrastructure.

Biased decisions, Women in the WorkplaceBrigitte BellanOctober 28, 2017AI NOW, Kate Crawford, WSJ, Bias, Hiring

Can we talk about the gender pay gap? By Xaquín G.V., Washington Post

The median salary for women working full-time is about 80 percent of men’s. That gap, put in other terms, means women are working for free 10 weeks a year.

... you started working for free 15 hours ago

Well, that is a little blunt — there are gradients on that difference. The pay gap varies depending on the occupation, working hours, education attainment, experience, and geography.

Start-Ups Use Technology to Redesign the Hiring Process - NY Times

Iris Bohnet, a behavioral economist and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, spoke to the founders of two behavioral design start-ups, Kate Glazebrook of Applied and Frida Polli of Pymetrics, for the latest on the algorithmic design revolution that is transforming hiring practices.

Women in the Workplace 2017 - LeanIn.Org and McKinsey

More companies are committing to gender equality. But progress will remain slow unless we confront blind spots on diversity—particularly regarding women of color, and employee perceptions of the status quo.

Women remain underrepresented at every level in corporate America, despite earning more college degrees than men for 30 years and counting. There is a pressing need to do more, and most organizations realize this: company commitment to gender diversity is at an all-time high for the third year in a row.

Despite this commitment, progress continues to be too slow—and may even be stalling. Women in the Workplace 2017, a study conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey, looks more deeply at why, drawing on data from 222 companies employing more than 12 million people, as well as on a survey of over 70,000 employees and a series of qualitative interviews. One of the most powerful reasons for the lack of progress is a simple one: we have blind spots when it comes to diversity, and we can’t solve problems that we don’t see or understand clearly.