What Do Women Earn as Brokers? A Lot Less Than Men Do. Men earn more than women commission jobs. Author mistakenly believes brokers are "given" accounts by employers. No mention of number of cold calls and long hours metrics.

pcarvious · 2012-05-19T19:07:36+00:00

Verdicts out until the paper is actually published IMO. She might have controlled for these factors, or not. It's also the first major study in the area so I'd like to see it expanded on more before anything is really done to call bullshit.

That aside, I don't know if it's junk science or not, but the question of what else is going on, comes to mind.

Mitschu · 2012-05-20T07:56:06+00:00

From the article:

At both firms, men and women were paid entirely by commission, using an algorithm that was the same for everyone and could not be changed by managers. Madden found that the female stockbrokers were not paid—or given raises—based on subjective performance reviews by their managers.

Madden, however, found there was no difference in the ability of women to make sales compared with their male colleagues. Both lawsuits were eventually settled before trial on terms that the media regarded as “favorable to the plaintiffs.”

“Stock brokerages are less hierarchical than most organizations in that they have a relatively small number of job levels,” Madden said. “Stockbrokers, in particular, are all in the same job—there’s no hierarchy—and their pay is based entirely on commissions generated from their sales of securities, not on supervisors’ more subjective evaluations of their performance.”

I'm confused. Are female stockbrokers not getting paid because of subjective performance reviews, or is pay based entirely on commissions, not on supervisors' subjective evaluations? You can't have your cake and not have it too, Madden. o.O

TerriChris · 2012-05-20T00:42:35+00:00

OP, could you please explain it to me like I'm five? I'm not denying your point, I just don't understand brokerage enough to know how this article is flawed.

mikesteane · 2012-05-20T06:10:41+00:00

Even if it were the case that employers gave accounts to brokers, an employer would be a complete fool to give accounts to anyone but the most effective candidate.

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