Gender Quotas: A simple solution to Irish political corruption and croneyism

maggy_thatcher

T Runner, if your party is pushing for gender quotas, why doesn't it follow Sweden's example (who you have frequently used as an example of how great quotas are) and go it alone.

If memory serves, one Swedish party decided to introduce gender quotas. It proved very popular, and soon enough everybody copied them (few if any Swedish parties are now gender agnostic).

If this quota thing is as good for parties as you have said it is on many occasions, why don't you try that? Put up or shut up as it were...the only reasons I can think of are:

1. Your party is FF and know that virtually nothing will allow them to get into power next term anyway, so why not hold off (though if that was the case why didn't they introduce legislation in the current Dáil?)
2. Your party is one of FG/Lab and know that they are virtually guaranteed to win the next election, so are holding off on this particular change until they need it.
3. Your party is SF/GP/some other minor party, where it doesn't really matter what they do, not enough people vote for them anyway to make a difference.
4. Your party is any one of the above, and don't have any confidence that it'll cause them to gain seats, so figure if they're hampered with it, then everybody else should be too.

Also - did you have plans for this to be implemented in time for the next election (i.e. January?). Surely that's not enough time to force parties to go out hunting for suitable women candidates to fill up quotas, resulting in a poor selection?

T runner

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Okay, this is really stretching things to new levels of ridicule.

Firstly, I'll ask again. What social issues do you think will be solved as a result of increased female representation which the current demographic is incapable of fixing? What sort of policies do you envision changing under a government with a neutral gender bias, and do please remember that the policies you describe require evidence to support the fact that they couldn't happen without a quota-based gender balance.

Off the top of my head i would say the massive problem of Violence against women and children in this country, Protecting all vulnerable children particularly in light of recent reports, the promotion of gender equality throughout the country starting with the removal of sexist clauses in our constitution, giving fairer rights to fathers including extending parental leave arrangements, promoting more flexible working arrangements to enable child carers (men and women) to have more of an input into the country, and many more.

Ofcourse these policies could be carried out by the current demographic or a Dail made up exclusively of men from county Leitrim. The liklihood of this happenning is minimal.


Remember: Equal participation of women and men in political life is one of the foundations of democracy and one of the goals of the Council of Europe, reaffirmed repeatedly by that Organisation’s Committee of Ministers.

T runner

k_mac wrote: »

Tanaiste, minister for health, minister for education, president.

That is not ALL the top jobs is it?

The number of male to female Gardaí is ever increasing.

I asked you what the proportion was of male to female.

I know many Gardaí, male and female who travel great distances to work. I knew a Garda from Cork who had to rent a house in Dublin until he got a transfer back to somewhere near his family. I know a number of male and female Gardaí who travel an hour each way to get to work.

We are talking about female TDs who have to stay in Dublin for 3 full days including evening meetings so that their Male counterparts can get back to the Parish pump early.

Do many bean gardai commute from the country every weekend away from their children?? I doubt it. Every country female TD must do this.
They dont bother. Those seats are safe for the parish pump lads.

No it wouldn't. Grants could be introduced without quotas anyway.

All the changes that remove barriers could be introduced but they havent and wont. Why would they?

If you make one change..ie Quotas you force the Parties (who are the people who really decide who gets elected) to remove barriers to equal representaion in Ireland.

Whatever way you want to look at it you are still discriminating against the better candidate based solely on their gender.

I am sick of expllaining this...i rreally am now.

Do you understand taht if there are no barriers the occurance of good males and females will always occur in between 30% and 70% and there will be NO BETTER CANDIDATE WHO LOSES HIS/HER SEAT.

If However, there are still barriers to equal representation then te party will strugle to make the quota and they will be punished by heavy fines and by the electorate not electing their weak candidates.

So you see, quotas reduce discrimination and where it still occurs it forces the discrimination in favour of the less represented gender.

Either way there is less discrimination and you can be sure in the next election the Party will have its act together.

Liam Byrne

T runner wrote: »

You wont get any reply from me while being a smart arse. Good luck.

Nice way to avoid answering the question. :rolleyes:

If you had an answer that supported your viewpoint, it would be logical to answer the question.

Liam Byrne

T runner wrote: »

We are talking about female TDs who have to stay in Dublin for 3 full days including evening meetings so that their Male counterparts can get back to the Parish pump early.

Really ? I guess there's no chance that those male counterparts might actually want to get back to their families ?

T runner wrote: »

Do many bean gardai commute from the country every weekend away from their children?? I doubt it. Every country female TD must do this.

Every country male TD must do it too. :rolleyes:

T runner wrote: »

I am sick of expllaining this...i rreally am now.

I don't think you've even started to explain it, and that's not being a smart arse; that's being 100% straight and honest.

So you see, quotas reduce discrimination and where it still occurs it forces increases the discrimination in favour of the less represented gender.

rumour

T runner wrote: »

What about Rwanda and other Quotad 3rd worls countries whose level of corruption diminished after reresentaion equaled out??

Good luck with that one...your gender discrimination obsession delivers the solution of Rwanda. Whats their GDP?
Its amazing how little corruption there is when there's no money.

BTW which party do you represent or advocate, at little bit of integrity and all that. I would really like to know...that is the first party I want to avoid in the forthcoming elections.

Time Magazine

T runner wrote: »

I would cite the central findings of both articles as evidence. Maybe you are also an advocate of the statistically negligeable "sheer fluke" for the cross country occurance of the bias.

Your argument is simply invalid.

The onus on a researcher is to prove something. They have not proved causation, they have shown statistically significant conditional correlation coefficients. They are not the same thing. The argument people are making to you is that this point has not been proven. It is unreasonable of you to then say "Well then prove it's not true!"

T runner

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Really ? I guess there's no chance that those male counterparts might actually want to get back to their families ?



Every country male TD must do it too. :rolleyes:

Judging by the amount of time that TDs actually spend away from their families when they actually get home: getting re-elected, parish pump politics basically, then we can conclude that they are probably not family orientated people. we should not be surprised at the complete failure of social policy in this country as a result.

They still need someone to look after their children though.

The number of house wives largely outnumber the number of house husbands in our largely traditionalist society but the career of full time politician follows the very traditional model of husband as politician and wife in charge of the familial sphere.

It is ironic that some of those who condemn outright parish pump politics as if its the bane of our society are so quick to defend it when it suits.

TDs have squashed and diluted their Dail obligations to enable them time to conduct their parish pump bull**** at home and you have just defended them as honourable family men.

I don't think you've even started to explain it, and that's not being a smart arse; that's being 100% straight and honest.

Oh i have directly to you although you have chosen to ignore it. See post 54.

Also could you elaborate on your sweeping assertion that quotas actually increase discrimination?

Sounds like an idea similar to your : Bring maternity leave down to 4 days gaffe.

It wasn't me!

T runner wrote: »

Judging by the amount of time that TDs actually spend away from their families when they actually get home: getting re-elected, parish pump politics basically, then we can conclude that they are probably not family orientated people. we should not be surprised at the complete failure of social policy in this country as a result.

They still need someone to look after their children though.

The number of house wives largely outnumber the number of house husbands in our largely traditionalist society but the career of full time politician follows the very traditional model of husband as politician and wife in charge of the familial sphere.

It is ironic that some of those who condemn outright parish pump politics as if its the bane of our society are so quick to defend it when it suits.

TDs have squashed and diluted their Dail obligations to enable them time to conduct their parish pump bull**** at home and you have just defended them as honourable family men.




Oh i have directly to you although you have chosen to ignore it. See post 54.

Also could you elaborate on your sweeping assertion that quotas actually increase discrimination?

Sounds like an idea similar to your : Bring maternity leave down to 4 days gaffe.

Quotas will increase discrimination because they are, by their very nature, discriminatory. I mean, that really doesn't take a huge intellect to process.

Also, if you'd care to re-read what was actually said, you'll find nobody advocated reducing maternity leave to four days. You jumped on the words with absolutely no comprehension of their context or their point. You seem to see everything as some sort of woman-hatred, when it's really an assault on your lack of logical process.

Permabear

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T runner

Time Magazine wrote: »

Your argument is simply invalid.

The onus on a researcher is to prove something. They have not proved causation, they have shown statistically significant conditional correlation coefficients. They are not the same thing. The argument people are making to you is that this point has not been proven. It is unreasonable of you to then say "Well then prove it's not true!"

You are misunderstanding the report. They have admitted that taking each of their findings in isolation one can argue against the findings. Taking the three findings together creates a very strong case that corruption is reduced in a parliament in the short to medium term at least. They argue that those who dispute the central findings are basing their opinion that all these cross country findings represent "sheer fluke". Ie The liklihood of it being statistically false are minimal. You are in effect arguing that it is likly to be 99.9% true not 100% true and therefore it is not valid. I disagre partcularly when there are countless other reports reaching the exact same conclusion as this using different data.

I have quoted the conclusions of the report as proof. Could you quote the report to demonstrate how its findings are not valid to add some substantiation to your claims?

If the central hypothesis of this claim and all the others are true (and they seem to have held true for all parliaments that introduced quotas) then this is extremely relevant to us.

In practial terms we can examine what might happen here should they be introduced:

Here are some changes that FF as an extreme example might have to make to reach their quota:

Change the culture of endless late meetings, golf outings (old boys club), etc to make politics accessable for people with child care who dont have a stay at home house partner. This will involve looking at the day of the politician, throwing out the rubbish (parish pump, old boys) leaving the rest.

Look at the selection process. Are the shouting matches at conventions intinidating women? Will turning them into a more civilised affair attarct more women? And possibly more intellectual men?

Maybe look at the people who select does this need to be changed to less traditionalist viewpoints? (This could reduce corruption at the nomination point, a fatal blow)

Arrange grants for men and women where finance is an issue and who may wish to enter politics. This opens up politics to a wider range of people and discourages croneyism.

Have trainng cousrse for women and men to encourage them in and build confidence that they can do the job. Again, new people coming in and the subsequent impact on croneyism and corruption.

Political parties would also be able to lobby for change in the Dail to facilitate women to enter politics.

The outrageous practice of TDs cramming their dail duties into 3 days would be an obvious immediate casualty

hobochris

Can you please point out where in any Irish statute Women are prevented from entering politics?

Permabear

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MagicSean

T runner wrote: »

Change the culture of endless late meetings, golf outings (old boys club), etc to make politics accessable for people with child care who dont have a stay at home house partner.

Late meetings are part of the job. Golf outings are how many people like to relax.

T runner wrote: »

Look at the selection process. Are the shouting matches at conventions intinidating women? Will turning them into a more civilised affair attarct more women? And possibly more intellectual men?

Intimidating women?. You seem to have this perception that women are meek and need to be helped. How do you suggest it is made more civilised? You'd swear the Dail was some kind of caveman conference.

T runner wrote: »

Have trainng cousrse for women and men to encourage them in and build confidence that they can do the job. Again, new people coming in and the subsequent impact on croneyism and corruption.

Confidence is part of politics. If you dont have it you dont belong there, no matter what sex you are.

T runner wrote: »

The outrageous practice of TDs cramming their dail duties into 3 days would be an obvious immediate casualty

You basically want to change our whole system to fit your outdated perception of what a woman needs.

T runner

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There are only a certain amount of hours in the day and if we are to believe TDs themsleves then we must assume that they work all the hours that God gitfs. I dont see TDs carrying children around all the time therefore I must conclude that the do not spend time in child caring (their wives do that).
If you spend little time with your family then you are not family oriented.
Saying you would be family oriented if you had the time is not the same thing is it?

No offence, but I dont have time to look up stats for you on something which is so self evident.

How can you deign to defend social policy in light of the recent Ryan and Murphy reports?

We have an underclass of people in this country who are un educated living in defacto ghettos and whose children will not have any oppurtunity to extract themselves from it.

How are we doing on crime. 5 times more people die form gub violence here than in our nearest neighbousr? Is this not evidence of abject failure

Lets take domestic violence which was topical very recently. The gardai still dont have the power to intervene if a man they suspect of violence or potential violence aginst his partner and children. The onus is on the wife and children to prove the violence.

This simple change of emphasis has occurred in almost every developed country. How many lives been lost due to this lack of policy here?

But our hard working traditional TDs with the wife happilyy minding the kids at home see this as a private issue, between man and wife. I have a feeling taht a truly representative parliament would allow this tragic oversight to continue.

Maybe instead of making sweeping assertions backed up by nothing in particular, you should actually read some of the academic literature on the subject. Here's a start—a paper by Fiona Buckley and Tim White, "An investigation of pipeline theory and women’s recruitment to the Irish Parliament: Results from the 2007 General Election."

If you can demonstrate that any of my assertions in this thread are fallacious then do so. i have substantiated those that need sunstantiation. However, saying that people who spend little time with their family are probably not family oriented is hardly a sweeping statement is it?

Do you have an issue with the fact that our national parliament has never represented the electorate in the history of our representative democracy?

Equal participation of women and men in political life is one of the foundations of democracy and one of the goals of the Council of Europe, reaffirmed repeatedly by that Organisation’s Committee of Ministers.

Do you disagree with the position of the European Council of ministers?

aidan24326

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

How exactly would croneyism and corruption be eradicated due to gender quotas? What makes you think these women would come from anywhere besides the usual places (political families etc)?

That's true, we only have to look at the women that are in Dail Eireann. Mary Coughlan, Mary Hanafin, Beverly Flynn, Mary O'Rourke, Aine Brady etc All elected either because they're from political dynasties or got in on a by-election for their father's vacated seat. So the croneyism doesn't stop with the men.

In terms of (in)competence, the women are every bit as bad too. Has there ever, ever been a more useless Tanaiste than Coughlan? They don't seem to allow her even say anything any more, for fear of what might come out of her mouth.

As for arrogance? Well I think 'class act' Flynn would beat any of her male counterparts hands down on that one. No, it's not more women we need, it's a radical overhaul to the political system fullstop. If that happens, and good female candidates run for office, they'll have as much chance as anyone else.

T runner

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Nice way to avoid answering the question. :rolleyes:

If you had an answer that supported your viewpoint, it would be logical to answer the question.

Not at all. If you ask the question with honesty and integrity i will answer. You didnt, you included a veiled insult, so i didnt answer.

MagicSean

T runner wrote: »

There are only a certain amount of hours in the day and if we are to believe TDs themsleves then we must assume that they work all the hours that God gitfs. I dont see TDs carrying children around all the time therefore I must conclude that the do not spend time in child caring (their wives do that).
If you spend little time with your family then you are not family oriented.
Saying you would be family oriented if you had the time is not the same thing is it?

You've previously mentioned that TDs only work 3 days a week. Can they not spend the other 4 with their family? Is this not family orientated? Only the other day I saw a TD bring a child to a press conference. I've never seen any female TDs carrying around their children though.

T runner wrote: »

Lets take domestic violence which was topical very recently. The gardai still dont have the power to intervene if a man they suspect of violence or potential violence aginst his partner and children. The onus is on the wife and children to prove the violence.

All the Gardaí need to intervene in a domestic violence situation is a complaint from a victim. The domestic violence act also gives more power to Gardaí and to victims. What kind of intervention are you referring to? One where a man can be charged without any proof?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

T runner

aidan24326 wrote: »

That's true, we only have to look at the women that are in Dail Eireann. Mary Coughlan, Mary Hanafin, Beverly Flynn, Mary O'Rourke, Aine Brady etc All elected either because they're from political dynasties or got in on a by-election for their father's vacated seat. So the croneyism doesn't stop with the men.

As alreay pointed out a Dail without the barriers to people antering politics would be a very different place with different people. Read through the thread for clarification.

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Also, if you'd care to re-read what was actually said, you'll find nobody advocated reducing maternity leave to four days. You jumped on the words with absolutely no comprehension of their context or their point.You seem to see everything as some sort of woman-hatred, when it's really an assault on your lack of logical process.

A poster sarcastically said that i would no doubt be against reducing maternity leave to paternity leave levels. That would mean a woman would have to break her water, give birth, recover and wean the child in 4 days. Although logical processes were at fault, it seems clear that they were someone elses

rumour wrote: »

Good luck with that one...your gender discrimination obsession delivers the solution of Rwanda. Whats their GDP?
Its amazing how little corruption there is when there's no money.

Obsession? No, i just believe a lot of good for everyone would come out of this one simple change and that its time for our country to progress.

What was Rwandas GDP when quotas were introduced? The studies on this have been done across nations with differnet social conditions always with the same trends.

BTW which party do you represent or advocate, at little bit of integrity and all that. I would really like to know...that is the first party I want to avoid in the forthcoming elections.

Thats interesting, That means that if all parties bar FF introduced quotas you would vote for them? Are you sure you are not the one with the gender discrimination obsession?

hobochris wrote: »

Can you please point out where in any Irish statute Women are prevented from entering politics?

I cant: i can only refer you to the well documanted barriers that stop women and many men from entering politics. I can point you to the paraghraph in our constitution which states that a womans preferred place is minding the kids in the home. Will that do?

donegalfella wrote: »

Now you are suggesting that women don't enter politics because they are timid, fearful creatures who are intimidated by shouting matches. I hope you realize you're not actually doing women any favours with this line of argument.

Confidence has been cited as a barrier to women (and many men) entering politics. The idea that the best politician is the one who can most aggressively shout down his opponent should be preposterous. It appears not in 21th century Ireland.

deise go deo

You have avoided the question twice, should there be gender quotas in other areas aswell, primary school teachers for example?

MagicSean

T runner wrote: »

I cant i can only refer you to the well documanted barriers that stop women and many men from entering politics. I can point you to the paraghraph in our constitution which states that a womans preferred place is minding the kisd in the home.

I think it actually says that it recognises the benefit a woman brings to the state by remaining at home and that the state shall not make it necessary for a woman to give up being a house wife out of economic necessity. You've completely misinterpreted it.

Liam Byrne

T runner wrote: »

Not at all. If you ask the question with honesty and integrity i will answer. You didnt, you included a veiled insult, so i didnt answer.

Convenient stance. I didn't include any "veiled insults", but feel free to continue to deflect and avoid answering.

Like your proposal, it seems your perception of hidden agendas and imagined insults is affecting your discussion.

deise go deo wrote: »

You have avoided the question twice, should there be gender quotas in other areas aswell, primary school teachers for example?

That makes two questions that the OP has chosen to avoid. I wonder what the "reason" for that was ?

aidan24326

Come on!!! How can you avoid societies perception of women as sex objects?

Sexism is endemic in our society.

A young woman has less oppurtunity than a young man.

Some random recent quotes from the OP ^^


T Runner, I think you need to get this sexism chip off your shoulder. If there's not as many women going into politics, there are obviously reasons for that, but not all of them are necessarily bad either.

Do you hear men screaming about gender bias in the hursing profession? Or what about the fact, as others have said to you, that the primary teaching profession has all but been hijacked by those bra-wearing oppressors known as women?

I mean sometimes there's a good reason why one sex is, on average, better suited to a particular job. That's just how it goes. No harm in that. Why politics has failed to attract as many women I don't know.

Bear in mind that medicine and law were extremely male dominated until not that long ago, a situation that is very much changing now. It can change in politics too but only if women actually put themselves forward. I can't vote for a woman if there aren't any on the ballot sheet.

Permabear

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T runner

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The mediacl profession can be attarctive for women because they can take time off as a GP employing sub doctors etc when they need to have children and be involved in raising them.

In the legal profession you will find that there is a glass ceiling to women getting the top positions. Thre are a small minority of women in the very top jobs in those professions. Children is generally the reason given behind this.

For the record, are you as passionate about gender equity in other areas of life? Do you have anything to say about the fact that 85 percent of Irish primary school teachers are women? Surely we need gender quotas for primary teachers? After all, why should our children be taught and influenced almost exclusively by women for the formative first 12-13 years of their lives?

This has been discussed and answered already, please read the thread before jumping in.

The Dáil exists to represent us politically, not demographically. You are carrying the concept of "representation" to illogical extremes, suggesting that if x percent of the electorate are working-class lesbians under the age of 30, then x percent of TDs must also be working-class lesbians under the age of 30. That's just silly.

That is you being silly not me.

There are barriers to people entering politics and no doubt this stretches to other groups. Im not going to explain these agin, please read the thread.

However, removing these barriers for one discriminated group, the largest, should have the effect for removing the barriers for all.

The most common types of TDs in Ireland seem to be: Male Publicans, teachers, solicitors, relations of fromer TDs, medical doctors. It seems to be difficult for other groups to participate. The same barriers that exist for women exist for these groups.

Logically the result of moving these barriers will be that politics is accessable to more people raising the quiality of politicians and structures and therefore raising the quality of gevernance.

I believe that women should have the opportunity to participate equally in political life, which indeed they do.

The fact that 22 women make it into the dail is surely not evidence that they have equal oppurtunity to men who have 122 members.

The % in the forties of Nordic countries is surely more indicative of equality of oppurtunity.

However, that's an entirely different thing from suggesting that having exactly 83 female TDs and exactly 83 male TDs in the Dáil should be an overarching goal that supersedes all other considerations.

Only you are suggesting that. In European terms values of 30% or 40% are taken as acceptable levels. Your implication that equality somehow implies exactly equal seat numbers is a dissapointing and deliberate non-argument on your part. Using tactics like this lead me to believe taht you dont avtually believe in the integrity of your viewpoint that 13% representaion of one gender in our Dail represents equality.

T runner

deise go deo wrote: »

You have avoided the question twice, should there be gender quotas in other areas aswell, primary school teachers for example?

I have answered the question twice!! If there are barriers to men getting jobs in this profession then I am adamant that they should be removed.

I have asked you to supply thse barriers twice without any response.

Do not misrepresent me again.

Liam Byrne

T runner wrote: »

The mediacl profession can be attarctive for women because they can take time off as a GP employing sub doctors etc when they need to have children and be involved in raising them.

Since when is a child a "need" ?

And since when are men not "involved in raising them" ?

T runner wrote: »

The fact that 22 women make it into the dail is surely not evidence that they have equal oppurtunity to men who have 122 members.

Begs the question what gender the other 19-to-22 are, but hey....

T runner

aidan24326 wrote: »

Some random recent quotes from the OP ^^

You are taking random quotes from differnt threads and fora, piecing them together and reying to paint me into a sexist?


I wont be responding to you again.

T runner

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

We are talking about a parties nomination convention not an election to the office of Taoiseach. If shouting people down is an acceptable tactic in conventions (and it is) then parties will tend to nominate candidates that are agressive and good at shouting people down. Should all party TDs have this attribute of aggressiveness and does this not suit men more than women?

Do you really want a Taoiseach whose only attribute is that he can shout louder than his opponent?

thebman

T runner wrote: »

We are talking about a parties nomination convention not an election to the office of Taoiseach. If shouting people down is an acceptable tactic in conventions (and it is) then parties will tend to nominate candidates that are agressive and good at shouting people down. Should all party TDs have this attribute of aggressiveness and does this not suit men more than women?

Do you really want a Taoiseach whose only attribute is that he can shout louder than his opponent?

Our politicians don't shout each other down. They are confident though.

If you actually want to see shouting politicians, look across the water to the UK.

T runner

thebman wrote: »

Our politicians don't shout each other down. They are confident though.

If you actually want to see shouting politicians, look across the water to the UK.

Why dont you go to a FF nomination convention? Wear a rain jacket to catch the spittal.

Time Magazine

T runner wrote: »

You are misunderstanding the report.

No, I am not.

They have admitted that taking each of their findings in isolation one can argue against the findings. Taking the three findings together creates a very strong case that corruption is reduced in a parliament in the short to medium term at least. They argue that those who dispute the central findings are basing their opinion that all these cross country findings represent "sheer fluke". Ie The liklihood of it being statistically false are minimal. You are in effect arguing that it is likly to be 99.9% true not 100% true and therefore it is not valid. I disagre partcularly when there are countless other reports reaching the exact same conclusion as this using different data.

And they are wrong to assert that it is "sheer fluke". Their test is set up incorrectly.

I have quoted the conclusions of the report as proof. Could you quote the report to demonstrate how its findings are not valid to add some substantiation to your claims?

Sure. One of the major questions in economics is the effect of education on earnings. It's a simple story: instead of working in Spar, you get a degree, become an engineer and earn more money. By applying the standard technique for estimating these relationships ("OLS") you will get a figure of about 6% - that is, every additional year of education seems to increase a person's earnings by 6%. Run this in 20 different countries and you will still get something around 6%. This is very comparable to what your studies are claiming.

The problem, and to be fair this has been pointed out to you a dozen times already, is that these regressions are potentially missing from an 'omitted variable bias'. I'll spare you the derivation, but if you're omitting a variable that affects both the outcome (e.g. wages, or corruption) and an explanatory variable (education, or female political participation), then every number that OLS returns will be biased (wrong in small samples) and inconsistent (wrong even in large samples, no "Law of Averages" trick here). This is why economists kept getting that 6% figure for the return on education: that was the conditional coefficient of correlation, and it kept rearing its head, time after time.

The problem is that 6% is not the causal effect of education on earnings. Why? There is a very clear, but subtle, omitted variable: people themselves. Some people are naturally more productive than others. People who don't procrastinate, people who are more self-motivated, people who don't suffer from subconscious anxiety, people who more suited to 9am starts; whatever you want to call it, people differ along these lines. Also, it's likely that these traits are correlated with both education and earnings. Of course they are: people who are more productive are likely (not certain, but likely) to get more education and earn higher wages. An OLS regression ignores this. No matter how many countries you sample from, you're setting the test up wrong.

So you have to take different approaches to estimating the causal effect. Again, I'll spare you the details, but the literature has mostly moved towards Instrumental Variables and Randomized Control Trials. These approaches are still not perfect, but are way more robust to omitted variables. It turns out the return on a year of education is actually 9%.

You might say "well that's not much different from 6%" and you're half-right. There are three things wrong with this reply, though:

1. The difference between 6% and 9% in terms of return is 50% - that's a huge difference
2. The difference here could have gone either way. It's a consequence of the example that I provided that they were both roughly similar. It's not uncommon for things to change from 6% to -4%, etc.
3. The entire point here is about the proof of causality. Bog standard OLS coefficients can never claim to be causal because of omitted variables. OLS provides zero evidence against the "social modernization" hypothesis and until some causal research is provided, the evidence remains very flimsy.

T runner

Time Magazine wrote: »

And they are wrong to assert that it is "sheer fluke". Their test is set up incorrectly.

First you assert that i was misinterpreting what they said, now you have backtracked and are implyimg that i have not in fact misinterpreted the report but that the conclusions of the rport itself are wrong. Thats a significant shift which means that you yourself somewhere along the line have misunderstood the report.

Sure.

So Yyou are going to show me where this reports falls down with examples quoted from from this report as you were asked? Good, lets hear it.

One of the major questions in economics is the effect of education on earnings. It's a simple story: instead of working in Spar, you get a degree, become an engineer and earn more money. By applying the standard technique for estimating these relationships ("OLS") you will get a figure of about 6% - that is, every additional year of education seems to increase a person's earnings by 6%. Run this in 20 different countries and you will still get something around 6%. This is very comparable to what your studies are claiming.

The problem, and to be fair this has been pointed out to you a dozen times already, is that these regressions are potentially missing from an 'omitted variable bias'. I'll spare you the derivation, but if you're omitting a variable that affects both the outcome (e.g. wages, or corruption) and an explanatory variable (education, or female political participation), then every number that OLS returns will be biased (wrong in small samples) and inconsistent (wrong even in large samples, no "Law of Averages" trick here). This is why economists kept getting that 6% figure for the return on education: that was the conditional coefficient of correlation, and it kept rearing its head, time after time.

The problem is that 6% is not the causal effect of education on earnings. Why? There is a very clear, but subtle, omitted variable: people themselves. Some people are naturally more productive than others. People who don't procrastinate, people who are more self-motivated, people who don't suffer from subconscious anxiety, people who more suited to 9am starts; whatever you want to call it, people differ along these lines. Also, it's likely that these traits are correlated with both education and earnings. Of course they are: people who are more productive are likely (not certain, but likely) to get more education and earn higher wages. An OLS regression ignores this. No matter how many countries you sample from, you're setting the test up wrong.

So you have to take different approaches to estimating the causal effect. Again, I'll spare you the details, but the literature has mostly moved towards Instrumental Variables and Randomized Control Trials. These approaches are still not perfect, but are way more robust to omitted variables. It turns out the return on a year of education is actually 9%.

You might say "well that's not much different from 6%" and you're half-right. There are three things wrong with this reply, though:

1. The difference between 6% and 9% in terms of return is 50% - that's a huge difference
2. The difference here could have gone either way. It's a consequence of the example that I provided that they were both roughly similar. It's not uncommon for things to change from 6% to -4%, etc.
3. The entire point here is about the proof of causality. Bog standard OLS coefficients can never claim to be causal because of omitted variables. OLS provides zero evidence against the "social modernization" hypothesis and until some causal research is provided, the evidence remains very flimsy.

Ive asked you to base youre reply on the report at hand: Im afraid regugitating an unrelated example about Spar and earnings wont cut it. As has been pointed out to you, (not dozens of times i wont exagerrate, but a few times) this report conducted 3 tests. Taking one seperately, you can make the claims you have made as the report has conceded.

Taking the 3 tests together it presents strong evidence for their case, and any argument against this can only support the "pure fluke" argument.

Can you please, as you were asked, base your answer on the report in question, with quotes as i have done, and the relevant tests that were carried out and not on some unrelated and fundamentally different one.

CokaColumbo

The only was to minimise government incompetence, waste and corruption is to minimise the power of government itself.

T runner

Time Magazine wrote: »

........Instrumental Variables and Randomized Control Trials. These approaches are still not perfect, but are way more robust to omitted variables.[/LIST]

Have you actually read the report??????

Did you notice the controlled trial that was carried out in it and its results?

Did you not also notice that possible other causes were tested and ruled out as insignificant or spurious?

Dummy states were entered into the data from different continent ruling out the possiblity of GDP being Causal.

Any comment on the following:

It could be that more corrupt countries also discriminate more against women, which leads to lower levels of participation by them. In this scenario the observed correlation between women’s participation and corruption is spurious, and driven by the omitted variable “level of discrimination against women.” We evaluated (and ruled out) this possibility by controlling for the level of gender discrimination using the gap between men’s and women’s educational attainment, and the gap between men’s and women’s life expectancy. Inclusion of these controls changes the women’s participation estimates only slightly

It seems that Omitted Variables have been accounted for by controls. Again, have you even read it??

T runner

CokaColumbo wrote: »

The only was to minimise government incompetence, waste and corruption is to minimise the power of government itself.

I dont agree with that. You are saying that corruption is inevtable when there is political power. Threre might always be corruption but it can be minimized by making it more difficult for those with a propensity to carry out corruption. (men or women).

southsiderosie

T runner wrote: »

Have you actually read the report??????

Did you notice the controlled trial that was carried out in it and its results?

Did you not also notice that possible other causes were tested and ruled out as insignificant or spurious?

Dummy states were entered into the data from different continent ruling out the possiblity of GDP being Causal.

Any comment on the following:

It seems that Omitted Variables have been accounted for by controls. Again, have you even read it??

From page 21:

These results suggest that our central finding is not driven by a time-invariant, country-specific omitted variable. Of course we still cannot entirely rule out bias due to a time-varying omitted variable (say, social “modernization”).

From Time Magazine:

...The problem, and to be fair this has been pointed out to you a dozen times already, is that these regressions are potentially missing from an 'omitted variable bias'. I'll spare you the derivation, but if you're omitting a variable that affects both the outcome (e.g. wages, or corruption) and an explanatory variable (education, or female political participation), then every number that OLS returns will be biased (wrong in small samples) and inconsistent (wrong even in large samples, no "Law of Averages" trick here)....

The entire point here is about the proof of causality. Bog standard OLS coefficients can never claim to be causal because of omitted variables. OLS provides zero evidence against the "social modernization" hypothesis and until some causal research is provided, the evidence remains very flimsy.

aidan24326

T runner wrote: »

You are taking random quotes from differnt threads and fora, piecing them together and reying to paint me into a sexist?


I wont be responding to you again.

Apologies for taking other quotes at random, but it wasn't to paint you as a sexist, I thought it was quite clear that I said you seem to have an exaggerated problem with sexism towards women, which no doubt exists, but is no longer as big a problem as you paint it to be, and certainly nothing remotely like what it was in the past. You do rather have a habit of throwing your toys out of the pram though when someone says something you don't like.

deise go deo

T runner wrote: »

I have answered the question twice!! If there are barriers to men getting jobs in this profession then I am adamant that they should be removed.

I have asked you to supply thse barriers twice without any response.

Do not misrepresent me again.

To use one of your own arguments.

The fact that 22 women make it into the dail is surely not evidence that they have equal oppurtunity to men who have 122 members.

If low female participation in Politics is evidience of barriers then surely the same applies to Primary school teaching.

So I ask again are you In favor of gender quotas against women in that profession to increase the balance between genders?
And if not then why is it different for Politics?

T runner

southsiderosie wrote: »

From page 21:


From Time Magazine:

Yes, and that is why a controlled trial was undertaken, something he claimed was not present and something he would have realised had he actually read the report.

In conjunction with the Controlled Trial, people who contend that the central claim of this paperr is false are infact clutching at the "sheer fluke" straw.


The area of corruption in other professional fields in the US, also bear out these findings: From the report

We are reassured to learn that our evidence is entirely consistent with the findings of leading criminologists. For instance, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990, p.194) show, using U.S. Department of Justice figures, that arrests for embezzlement per 100,000 white-collar workers are higher for men for every age group. They also cite a variety of sources to make the case that across age groups, countries, and types of crime, the evidence regarding higher participation of men is remarkably uniform. The following summary statement from a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States reflects the confidence with which the gender differential has been identified in the criminology literature33: “The most consistent pattern with respect to gender is the extent to which male criminal participation in serious crimes at any age greatly exceeds that of females, regardless of the source of data, crime type, level of involvement, or measure of participation.”

gizmo555

deise go deo wrote: »

To use one of your own arguments.





If low female participation in Politics is evidience of barriers then surely the same applies to Primary school teaching.

So I ask again are you In favor of gender quotas against women in that profession to increase the balance between genders?
And if not then why is it different for Politics?

You are wasting your time - T Runner has had the same question put to him ad nauseam in earlier threads on this topic but has never answered it.

Liam Byrne

T runner wrote: »

I dont agree with that. You are saying that corruption is inevtable when there is political power. Threre might always be corruption but it can be minimized by making it more difficult for those with a propensity to carry out corruption. (men or women).

Agreed. And ironically you said it yourself : "men or women".

You have just highlighted why your "simple solution" from the thread title makes absolutely no sense.

southsiderosie

T runner wrote: »

Yes, and that is why a controlled trial was undertaken, something he claimed was not present and something he would have realised had he actually read the report.

In conjunction with the Controlled Trial, people who contend that the central claim of this paperr is false are infact clutching at the "sheer fluke" straw.

The area of corruption in other professional fields in the US, also bear out these findings: From the report

It was not a controlled trial. Controlled trials have a control group, randomize who gets treatment, and can therefore isolate the effects of a given treatment. As TM pointed out, in social science, the best we can hope for is to come across a natural experiment; controlled trials are almost impossible to run when it comes to social phenomena.

The reports you have cited are not natural experiments, and do not adequately capture the effect on broader social change on the outcome of interest (reduction in corruption).

In the article, the authors claim they are "controlling for" - i.e. taking into account - a number of variables that could explain corruption outcomes, such as the wealth of a society, its history of colonialism, etc. But they explicitly state that they can not control for broader social changes, or "social modernization" as the authors put it, and social modernization is the main issue that people who question your argument have been focusing on.

We are really going around in circles here. The first half of this thread was a debate about correlation and causation and now we are arguing about omitted variable bias. Neither of these should be up for debate, because the very articles you cited admitted that they a) could only demonstrate correlation and b) may have problems with omitted variable bias when it comes to social changes over time. From your posts, it seems like you are either 1) cherry-picking the articles while ignoring what the authors themselves admit are technical flaws, 2) reading the entire article, but not quite getting the terminology in question or c) are deliberately ****-stirring.

sparkling sea

T runner wrote: »

Croneyism, corruption, lazy and unethical politics were an essential link in the chain that allowed the government, with help from banks, to lead us into our present predicament. This is a predicament we are not out of yet with bond markets predicting a more absolute default for Ireland a few years down the road and the spread on Irish bonds as high as ever as of today.

Will making vague angry demands to politicians achieve an end to this poison of corruption and lack of ethics in our political system? The chances of success are low i think.

Fianna Fail are a beast evolved in the environment that is our political system.
Surgically removing FF, although necessary will not rid us of these poison which our system facilitates.

Is there a way to radically fastrack this process of decontamination?

If we look at the Corruption Transparancy Index we see that 4 out of the to 5 countries (least corruption) have a high percentage of Female parliamentarians. Atleast 3 of these countries used quotas to get their figures of female representaion up initially.

Would forcing quotas on all parties destroy the croneyism, corruption, and old boys clubs by removing barriers for men and women normally not meeting the "club" requirements?

If this is so is it conceivable that a gender policy brought in 15 years ago would have saved us from this crises by eliminating the dodgy practices of government?

This is not to suggest that females are less corrupt than males, rather that gender balance eliminates old boys and girls clubs and croneyism.

This is not going to develop organically, in my view it will either happen by quotas or we will be here in 30 years time with 87% males in the dail and transparent government still an issue.

Is it that women just dont like politics as much as men. Well 40% + women like politcs well enough to be MPs in the Nordic countries arguably the most socially sophistcated in the world.

Only 4% of women like politics in Turkey apparently.

Remember in 2010 Ireland there is still no child care facilities in Dail Eireann!!!

If your reply is: why havent the women organised it?...Ill remind you again of 87%-13% ratio. You will also have answered the question as to why child care, social policies etc are non existant in Ireland. Answer: The male TDs like you, leave that stuff to the women.........

(can we stick to debating issues rather than personally attacking people/politicians for or against these policies)

I think gender quotas are a brillant idea and need to be enforced immediately if not sooner.

I total agree that history and especially Irish history, with its biased Constitution and near elimination of women from Irish history dictates the need for this .

As we hear again and again 'We are where we are' - Ireland has stayed where it is in relation to women and politics - gender quotas all the way.

Article 41 of Bunreacht na hEireann specifies the sanctity of the family, organised around women’s care and men’s breadwinning and Article 41.2.1 and 41.2.2 state:
1° In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home (Bunreacht na hEireann).

This is a patronising and discriminatory view which is intrincally linked to our essence through our Consititution, has ensured that in fight for gender recognition, an emphasis has been placed on women’s distinctiveness, even though they are attempting to eliminate inequalities that form this frame of gender difference. There has been the greatest resistance to claims made based on equal treatment in the labour market and social policy.

Also politicans who are as we know mostly male ( because of years of positive discrimination - yes) have recently interferred in a prominent area where girls could earn a very high income and had started to out preform boys - the leaving cert exam points system. Girls were sweeping ahead of the boys and had only started to outnumber boys in the medical profession when low and behold the hpat exams were introduced.
First HPAT has 100 or so multiple choice questions - girls tend to do less well them boys in MCQ.
HPAT is directly discriminatory against women as section 3 is based on non-verbal spatial reasoning tests (essentially a mathematics test) where girls are known not to perform as well as boys for a host of different reasons

Because of politicans 'old boys mentality' and even though I dont agree with enforced quotas - we have not as a Nation levelled the playing field for women yet- perhaps say 20 to 30 years of quotas would go a long way to help rid society of this inequality.

We have afterall lived through hundreds of years of men receiving the advantage of positive discrimination and it did allow men to become dominate in every profession for years and years. I think its time positive discrimination was used for good and it would appear that we can't achieve change swiftly without it.

marienbad

T-Runner , this thread has just about done my head in , but just a few points, and please don't get insulting , I take your points at face value and accept you are completely sincere, I just dont agree with them.

Everybody accepts more women in politics would be a good thing, this applies to all under-represented groups. I just don't agree a enforced quota system is the way to go.

I am afraid you just don't understand the difference between causation and correlation ( there is no polite way of saying that, but it is so).

The croneyism and corruption in Irish politics is caused a multiplicty of reasons which we can go into if you wish but I am afraid if we elected 100 Mother Teresas it would make little difference. Without fundamental structural and societal change it will be a case of ''plus ca change,plus ce
la meme chose'

You are constantly using Sweden and Rwanda as examples .That just wont wash ,One the one had we have the most advanced social democracy the world has ever seen and on the other a manufactured society where it is way too soon to be drawing conclusions. It is meaningless applying such comparisions to Ireland in her current plight.

A few random points that may be relevant

-A french philosopher( his name escapes me) made the point that it take up to five generations for a post colonial society to develop a true civic spirit and this has always struck me as Ireland's problem

-Women in Ireland have always ( since they were given the vote) made up more that 50% of the electorate. If you cant convince your constituency of the merits of your case there is no point blaming the other guy.'

-there is nothing wrong with democracy that more democracy wont cure. That is the answer.

T runner

gizmo555 wrote: »

You are wasting your time - T Runner has had the same question put to him ad nauseam in earlier threads on this topic but has never answered it.

That is not true.

I am not familiar with this issue and have consistantly said that if barriers exist to men working in the Primary sector then that these should be removed. If barriers exist and the best way to remove them is a quota then id back this 100%.

Having asked several times now for the people who brought up this to elaborate an any barriers to male participation i receive only silence.

Looks like the people who are using this issue, dont even care enough to find out anything about it. I cant say Im surprised.

T runner

marienbad wrote: »

T-Runner , this thread has just about done my head in , but just a few points, and please don't get insulting , I take your points at face value and accept you are completely sincere, I just dont agree with them.

Why would i get insulting? Thats rather an unfair assumption.

Everybody accepts more women in politics would be a good thing, this applies to all under-represented groups. I just don't agree a enforced quota system is the way to go.

If you read through this thread you will see that most of the posters actually dont see a problem with the 13% representation at present.

I am afraid you just don't understand the difference between causation and correlation ( there is no polite way of saying that, but it is so).

As Ive pointed out the report i quoted established causation by controlled trial.

The croneyism and corruption in Irish politics is caused a multiplicty of reasons which we can go into if you wish

Yes id like to go into them. They are extremely relevant.

but I am afraid if we elected 100 Mother Teresas it would make little difference. Without fundamental structural and societal change it will be a case of ''plus ca change,plus ce
la meme chose'

But if you have 100 mother Thersas then they would have power to make structural and societal change and would have the will to do it.

You have described a catch 22 situation: Corruption wont end until there is fundamental change, and the current TDs who have the power to make the changes wont do it. Changing the type of current TDs will have a positive affect in this direction, and gender quotas will enable more women to get involved in politics as well as more men.

You are constantly using Sweden and Rwanda as examples .That just wont wash ,One the one had we have the most advanced social democracy the world has ever seen

Yes, and you dont think its about time for for us to cop onto something a society like Sweden copped onto 20 years ago. I think aspiring to a society like Swedens is a good thing.

and on the other a manufactured society where it is way too soon to be drawing conclusions.

There has been a high female represantation in Rwanda for the 15 + years.
It is not to early for us to record that the corruption perception in Rwanda scores over twice as highly as most of its central African neighbours.

Also in every country where you have a high female political representaion you have relatively low corruption.

It is meaningless applying such comparisions to Ireland in her current plight.

In her current plight? Why should a comparison in her current plight be significantly diferent than i camparison say 5 years ago. I dont understand your point.


A few random points that may be relevant

-A french philosopher( his name escapes me) made the point that it take up to five generations for a post colonial society to develop a true civic spirit and this has always struck me as Ireland's problem

And a lack of civic spirit in politicians can turn to corruption in certain circumstances like old boys clubs etc. Do you really think that the unhealthy relationship between FF, developers, banks would have festerd to the same degree if female representation had been high here for the last 20 years?

-Women in Ireland have always ( since they were given the vote) made up more that 50% of the electorate. If you cant convince your constituency of the merits of your case there is no point blaming the other guy.'

Again you need to read through the thread.

In the last election about 17% of all candidates were women and just under 14% of TDs were women.

People will vote for women that is not the issue. The issue is women getting to a parties selection convention and women actually being selected.

One example Ill give you is that female candidates are significantly more qualified than male candidates. This means that for candidates with the same qualifications it is easier for the man to get selected.

-there is nothing wrong with democracy that more democracy wont cure. That is the answer.

But thats the problem: We dont have representaive democracy. Youre average TD is probably a male teacher, farmer, solicitor and is married, the wife doing the primary child care duties. Is this representative of the Irish population?

A cornerstone of democracy is fair gender representaion in politics according tothe European Council of ministers.

46% of all women TDs were closely related to a former TD. The greatest attribute our female politicians have seems to be that their father was a TD!

Something is very wrong. If barriers to women entering politics are not removed then, at the current rate, 40% of TDs will be women in 370 years.

We need to change things. If not quotas then what do you suggest.
Our policy of doing nothing for the past 100 years ahs clearly not worked.

fenris

how about you and some like minded people just run in the general election, get a majority and fix whatever you think is broken?

This is probably the best opportunity that you will get as party politics has taken a bit of a battering lately and if you make sense to enough people you could have a shot.

So just skip the retoric and the I could have been a contender but the boys wouldn't let me line, get off your arse and do something.

There is a slight risk that the majority of the Irish people may not agree with your reasoned and well presented arguement but if that is the case then maybe we just don't deserve you, but that is just democracy in action, we get the government we deserve because we vote for them.

T runner

aidan24326 wrote: »

Apologies for taking other quotes at random, .

It is dishonest to say that you took these quotes at random. You deliberately picked these to misrepresent me, there was nothing random abouat it. In my OP i specifically requested that people debate the arguments rather than trying to attack or undermine the poster. I wont be replying to you again.