(06-10-2013, 10:53 PM)kandrathe Wrote: The most important factor I've found in pay equity in this era is self-awareness. If you don't know what something is worth, you are unlikely to negotiate a fair price. The people who are paid the most in the US, first know what they are worth, are willing to walk away from a bad deal and then are also the best negotiators.
Is that self-awareness? Or is it opportunity cost and risk?
If you have a variety of potential good options, and a stock of wealth (family or otherwise) to fall back on, you can bargain hard, because the potential downside is low. If you don't, maybe you're more worried about losing the opportunity than about squeezing the most out of it. This would be entirely rational behaviour.
This would be both true of aspiring grads with education and talent, and of poor people looking for a job to keep the wolf from the door. It's been well demonstrated that welfare nets in Europe increase the time of transitional unemployment, but have little effect on structural unemployment. People don't just stop looking for work, but they do become pickier in finding a good job - that is to say, they know what they're worth, and bargain harder. If they had to choose between taking a job quickly, or going hungry and homeless, they might not bargain so hard.
This is one reason why the benefits of privilege can't just be measured by outcomes. Risk behaviour changes based on unobserved second-best options.
-Jester