<p>On average,
white engineers make 80k
Asians make 72k
Black 60k
Hispanic 56k</p>
<p>Women 62k
Men 79k</p>
<p>Overall average is 75k</p>
<p>Why? Do women make bad engineers? Also, how come Asians still make less than white people? I thought on average Asians had better credentials(GPA, college prestige) than whites. Is it because of immigrants with poor communication skills?</p>
<p>I was kinda worried about becoming an engineer after I read that report. I'm Asian and I'm a girl, so I'm (on average) going to be making "only"(compared to others) about 60k mid career.</p>
<p>Well the reason why women make less is because women tend to take large amounts of time to start and raise a family which means when a woman decides to go back into the work force she has potentially lost several years of experience. White vs minority might have a lot to do with networking opportunities. Also one thing you will learn is that GPA and credentials really don’t matter when looking for a job, its all about who you know.</p>
<p>I looked at the reference, but I could not find any indication of sampling method or sample group - was it looking at new hires only, or at all engineers? If it is looking at new engineers then I think that there is an issue, but if it is looking at all engineers then it is probably not too much of a worry - the numbers would be skewed by the high-earning set of engineers, most of whom entered the workforce decades ago when pretty much only white males entered the field. As they retire, nothing will stop non-white non-males from taking those high paying jobs.</p>
<p>Looking at the data, it seems that the difference is caused in part by the fact that only 4% of petroleum engineers are Asian, white 83% are white. Petroleum engineering is BY FAR the most lucrative field. The salary of the lowest 25th percentile is higher than the average salary for all engineers. </p>
<p>The rest of the difference is probably because of as you said, immigrants with poor English. A lot of graduate engineering students from India and China come and stay, and get hired for a lot less than the average, since they are willing to accept lower paying jobs. </p>
<p>You made a good decision, deciding to major in engineering. Engineering is one of the best-paying fields(up there with professional degrees like medicine or law). I mean, what else could you major in? It would probably be even harder for an Asian woman to be successful in something like law or business. And I think a lot of Med and Law schools use affirmative action, which hurts Asians.</p>
<p>In almost every occupation you will find a similar discrepancy between women’s and men’s salaries. There have been many many many empirical studies dissecting the interplay of reasons for the discrepancy, which range from different choices women make to bias in hiring, promotion and salary negotiations. The reason is complex and not readily answered by a bunch of people on a forum (at best you’ll just get personal opinions and debates).</p>
<p>The overall wage gap, even after controlling for potential differences between genders (such as education, tenure, actual title and occupational rank, performance etc.), has been significant and stalled for the past two decades.</p>
<p>Have a look at the youtube clip of Sheryl Sandberg (VP of Facebook) commencement speech to Barnard students.</p>
<p>Having children definitely caused me to get off the fast track. I was never a “kid” person, so I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed being a mom and staying home with them. I’ve stuck to basic engineering and AutoCAD/Revit drafting jobs for the last 15 years, and been quite happy. It’s not what I expected when I was 18, but life has been good to me, nonetheless.</p>
<p>FWIW, several of the senior engineering VP’s at my Fortune 100 company are women. I have had the privilege of talking and working with a few of them, and it was interesting to hear how they had to work their career around their families - one in particular noted that she could not have taken her current executive position (which is typically an 80 hour week) when her children were still at home, but that when they left she enjoyed the fact that she was able to transfer much of that focus and workload into a more demanding position that the vast majority of men at the company would be reluctant to take (not guessing on that - we took a survey).</p>
<p>Anyway, I think the majority of problems facing women and minorities in the engineering workplace are either a factor of choice (like parenthood), negotiable (men can stay at home with kids too), or are slowly but surely aging themselves out of the workforce (as in the old white guys who are being replaced by progressively less bigoted people). As a new student I think things look pretty good for the OP.</p>
<p>Women make less money than men, on average, because they’re more likely to do things like take a couple years off, work part-time, decline additional responsibilities, etc. in order to have more time to spend with family (especially if there are young kids in the picture). This causes the skewing in the data you’re looking at.</p>
<p>A woman doing the same job in the same circumstances as a man will get paid the same - it would be illegal otherwise.</p>
<p>Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Things won’t change until enough people decide it’s an issue.</p>
<p>$17,000 a year is a big difference. That’s almost a new car every year. I’m sure some part of it has to do with children and family life, but not all.</p>
Which companies are you aware of that pay women less for doing the same job under the same circumstances?</p>
<p>I worked in a grocery store back in high school. The women employees were paid exactly the same as male employees of the same job title. Everyone made $8.76 starting out, and everyone got the 15-cent raise after the same time period. Managerial people were also all paid the same. It didn’t matter whether you were a man or a woman.</p>
<p>Same thing at the company where I work at currently. Your salary is determined using a formula of what you’re majoring in, how soon you graduate, and how many previous summers you’ve worked there. Gender is not part of the formula.</p>
<p>As another example, take the military. Your pay rate is based on your number of years of service and whether you have a college degree. There aren’t separate sections on the chart ([2011</a> Military Pay Scale Chart - for Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines](<a href=“http://www.militaryfactory.com/military_pay_scale.asp]2011”>Military Pay Scale (March 2024))) for “male” vs. “female”. In fact, all government-paid jobs (teaching, police officers, etc.) work this way. </p>
<p>Where have you ever seen men making more than women for doing the same job? I’m very curious.</p>
<p>Medwell, go somewhere that isn’t either government, union, or near minimum wage. When raises start to become merit based and promotions are based on factors other than time spent there you’ll start to see this sort of stratification happening.</p>
<p>Happens all the time at my company, among others. Women just get paid less. They don’t get the awards, they don’t get the promotions. Not sure why. Think it might have something to do with the female professional mentality to “work twice as hard,” which means that you’re too pooped to schmooze.</p>
<p>In my case, an opinionated man is generally seen as a leader, but an opinionated woman is generally seen as a malcontent… I’m starting to come to the conclusion that I need to be the master of my own destiny and do something outside of corporate ladder-climbing. I’ll keep y’all posted as to how that turns out, I’m sure.</p>
<p>In general, if two subjects are close together in terms of the number, the difference is merely due to the population. If there are more White engineers in a certain field, the average is usually higher. But if, say there are 5 Asian and 10 White in PE, and the Asian makes $76k and the white mkaes $80K, then we may conclude that the Asian makes more money than the White, based the population.</p>
<p>Women don’t make bad engineers, but I think most employers prefer male engineers, espeically in PE, CE, ME, EE.</p>
<p>Moreover, the survey doesn’t reveal or try to distinguish the respondents by their experiences, their age, etc. But nonetheless the resulting number is realistic and true.</p>
<p>A relative of mine is a PM at a large, international OR/IE company.</p>
<p>She makes about 60k less/year than her male PM’s (which is close to a 100% discrepancy), working on the same type of projects with the similar project revenue. </p>
<p>Her male colleagues have told her this out of respect to her, because they think the practice is wrong. She’s had promised raises rescinded. </p>
<p>She would like to take them to court, she is almost certain she would win, but she is the breadwinner of her family and can’t afford the multiple-year legal proceedings that would ensue. She would obviously have to find another job afterward as well, which is no easy feat in this market, especially if you have a two-year employment gap from a court case.</p>
<p>She routinely puts in 10-12 hour days (more if needed). She has a son, but he’s a teenager.</p>
<p>So these would be those “same circumstances” that Medwell is wanting to see. I know it’s just one specific case, but I have to believe there are more like them.</p>
<p>What have I learned from her experience? Corporate culture is everything in your job. As soon as you find out you work for d-bags, start finding a way out.</p>
<p>My former boss, best boss I’ve ever had, said that far and away the women they hire are more qualified than the men they hire. He said that the women have higher GPAs, better extracurriculars, and that the male hires aren’t nearly as universally qualified. I was really surprised at this, and tried to challenge him on it, saying that maybe women self-select before applying, but he was adamant. The women are the better applicants, he says.</p>
<p>I’m still skeptical, and don’t even try to ask me to explain how that mentality can coexist within the restrictions of a company that doesn’t promote their female employees, but there you go. Based upon that, I’m just not so sure that you can say conclusively that companies prefer to hire men.</p>
To be fair, once raises start to become merit-based, the raises will go to whichever employees are the most efficient and productive. If these characteristics differ among employees, it only follows that this is not a case of people doing the job in the same circumstances. It only makes sense that the gender more likely (on average) to take years off, work part-time, and turn down additional responsibility would experience less merit-based raises (on average). </p>
<p>As for promotions, well, once somebody gets promoted, it’s once again no longer a case of two people doing the same job.</p>
<p>I still stand by my original comment - a woman doing the same job (same rank, title, etc.) in the same circumstances (same hours, productivity, etc.) as a man will be paid the same.</p>
<p>To the people of this thread: Does engineering actually pay well?</p>
<p>That post above mentioned engineering salaries were close to salaries of those in medicine and law. But 75k doesn’t really seem like much, especially when compared to some doctors. I think.
I mean, my dad makes about the same (I think perhaps even more D:) and he’s an immigrant landscaper!</p>
<p>It can be pretty sweeping. I am sure the number is changing, and more employers do see the benefits of employing more female engineers. For one females are the largest conumers and without their perspectives it can be difficult to sell some of their products.</p>
<p>What I am referring to is the discrimination, workplace inequality.</p>